All About Eve

ADDISON: How do you know my name?

GIRL: It's a very famous name, Mr. deWitt.

ADDISON: And what is your name?

GIRL: Phoebe.

ADDISON: Phoebe?

GIRL: I call myself Phoebe.

ADDISON: Why not? Tell me, Phoebe, do you want some day to have an award like that of your own?

ADDISON: Hello, there. Who are you?

GIRL: Miss Harrington's resting, Mr. deWitt. She asked me to see who it is...

ADDISON: We won't disturb her rest. It seems she left her award in the taxicab. Will you give it to her?

EVE: I'm tired. I want to go home.

ADDISON: Very well. I shall drop you and go on to the party. I have no intention of missing it...

EVE: I don't suppose there's a drink left...

ADDISON: You can have one at Max's.

EVE: I don't think I'm going.

ADDISON: Why not?

EVE: Because I don't want to.

ADDISON: Max has gone to a great deal of trouble, it's going to be an elaborate party, and it's for you.

EVE: No, it's not. It's for this.

ADDISON: It's the same thing, isn't it?

EVE: Exactly. Here. Take it to the party instead of me.

ADDISON: You're being childish.

EVE: I won't play tonight. I couldn't. Not possibly. I couldn't go on...

ADDISON: Couldn't go on? You'll give the performance of your life.

ADDISON: Then say so.

EVE: Yes, Addison.

ADDISON: And you realize - you agree how completely you belong to me?

EVE: Yes, Addison.

ADDISON: Take your nap, now. And good luck for tonight.

ADDISON: You used my name and my column to blackmail Karen into getting you the part of "Cora" - and you lied to me about it!

EVE: No-no-no...

ADDISON: I had lunch with Karen not three hours ago. As always with women who want to find out things, she told more than she learned... ... do you want to change your story about Lloyd beating at your door the other night?

EVE: I had to get in, to meet Margo! I had to say something, be somebody, make her like me!

ADDISON: She did like you, she helped and trusted you! You paid her back by trying to take Bill away!

EVE: That's not true!

ADDISON: I was there, I saw you and heard you through the dressing room door!

EVE: She was a liar, she was a liar!

ADDISON: Answer my question! Weren't you paid to get out of town?

ADDISON: A matter of opinion. Granted. It is also true that you worked in a brewery. But life in the brewery was apparently not as dull as you pictured it. As a matter of fact, it got less and less dull - until you boss's wife had your boss followed by detectives!

EVE: She never proved anything, not a thing!

ADDISON: But the $500 you got to get out of town brought you straight to New York - didn't it?

ADDISON: Your name is not Eve Harrington. It is Gertrude Slescynski.

EVE: What of it?

ADDISON: It is true that your parents were poor. They still are. And they would like to know how you are - and where. They haven't heard from you for three years...

EVE: What of it?

ADDISON: You're too short for that gesture. Besides, it went out with Mrs. Fiske.

EVE: Then if you won't get out, I'll have you thrown out.

EVE: I still don't know what you're getting at. Right now I want to take my nap. It's important that I-

ADDISON: - it's important right now that we talk. Killer to killer.

EVE: Champion to champion.

ADDISON: Not with me, you're no champion. You're stepping way up in class.

EVE: Addison, will you please say what you have to say plainly and distinctly - and then get out so I can take my nap!

ADDISON: Very well, plainly and distinctly. Although I consider it unnecessary - because you know as well as I, what I am about to say. Lloyd may leave Karen, but he will not leave Karen for you.

EVE: What do you mean by that?

ADDISON: More plainly and more distinctly? I Have not come to New Haven to see the play, discuss your dreams, or to pull the ivy from the walls of Yale! I have come to tell you that you will not marry Lloyd - or anyone else - because I will not permit it.

EVE: What have you got to do with it?

ADDISON: Everything. Because after tonight, you will belong to me.

EVE: I can't believe my ears...

ADDISON: A dull cliche.

EVE: Belong - to you? That sound medieval - something out of an old melodrama...

ADDISON: So does the history of the world for the past twenty years. I don't enjoy putting it as bluntly as this, frankly I had hoped that you would, somehow, have known - have taken it for granted that you and I...

EVE: ... taken it for granted? That you and I...

ADDISON: What do you take me for?

EVE: I don't know what I take you for anything...

ADDISON: It is possible - even conceivable - that you've confused me with that gang of backward children you've been playing tricks on - that you have the same contempt for me that you have for them?

EVE: I'm sure you mean something by that, Addison, but I don't know what...

ADDISON: Look closely, Eve, it's time you did. I am Addison deWitt. I'm nobody's fool. Least of all - yours.

EVE: I never intended you to be.

ADDISON: Yes, you did. You still do.

ADDISON: I see. And when was this unholy alliance joined?

EVE: We decided the night before last, before we came up here...

ADDISON: Was the setting properly romantic - the lights on dimmers, gypsy violins off stage?

EVE: The setting wasn't romantic, but Lloyd was. He woke me up at three in the morning, banging on my door - he couldn't sleep, he told me - he's left Karen, he couldn't go on with the play or anything else until I promised to marry him... we sat and talked until it was light. He never went home...

ADDISON: You sat and talked until it was light...

EVE: We sat and talked, Addison. I want a run of the play contract.

ADDISON: There never was, there'll never be another like you.

EVE: Well, say something - anything! Congratulations, skol - good work, Eve!

EVE: Addison, won't it be just perfect? Lloyd and I - there's no telling how far we can go... he'll write great plays for me, I'll make them be great! You're the only one I've told, the only one that knows except Lloyd and me...

ADDISON: ... and Karen.

EVE: She doesn't know.

ADDISON: So that's it. Lloyd. Still just the Theater, after all...

EVE: It's nothing of the kind! Lloyd loves me, I love him!

ADDISON: I know nothing about Lloyd and his loves - I leave those to Louisa May Alcott. But I do know you.

EVE: I'm in love with Lloyd!

ADDISON: Lloyd Richards is commercially the most successful playwright in America-

EVE: You have no right to say such things!

ADDISON: - and artistically, the most promising! Eve dear, this is Addison.

EVE: Addison...

ADDISON: She's always been so fantastically devoted to Lloyd. I would imagine that only death or destruction could keep her-

EVE: Addison, just a few minutes ago. When I told you this would be a night to remember - that it would bring me everything I wanted-

ADDISON: - something about an old road ending and a new one starting - paved with stars...

EVE: I didn't mean just the Theater.

ADDISON: What else?

ADDISON: Also with the reluctant compliments of Max Fabian.

EVE: Lloyd. I never have any, and he likes a couple of drinks after we finish - so he sent it up...

ADDISON: Some plain soda. Lloyd must be expecting a record run in New Haven...

EVE: That's for tonight. You're invited. We're having everyone up after the performance.

ADDISON: We're?

EVE: Lloyd and I.

ADDISON: Suites are for expense accounts. Aren't you being extravagant?

EVE: Max is paying for it. He and Lloyd had a terrific row but Lloyd insisted... well. Can I fix you a drink?

ADDISON: The mark of a true killer. Sleep tight, rest easy - and come out fighting...

EVE: Why'd call me a killer?

ADDISON: Did I say killer? I meant champion. I get my boxing terms mixed.

EVE: What time?

ADDISON: Almost four.

EVE: Plenty of time for a nice long nap - we rehearsed most of last night...

ADDISON: You could sleep, too, couldn't you?

EVE: Why not?

EVE: It'll be a night to remember. It'll bring to me everything I've ever wanted. The end of an old road - and the beginning of a new one...

ADDISON: All paved with diamonds and gold?

EVE: You know me better than that.

ADDISON: Paved with what, then?

EVE: Stars.

EVE: What a day - what a heavenly day...

ADDISON: D-day.

EVE: Just like it.

ADDISON: And tomorrow morning you will have won your beachhead on the shores of Immortality...

EVE: Stop rehearsing your column... Isn't it strange, Addison? I thought I'd be panic-stricken, want to run away or something. Instead, I can't wait for tonight to come. To come and go...

ADDISON: Are you that sure of tomorrow?

EVE: Aren't you?

ADDISON: Frankly - yes.

EVE: I don't think that's funny.

ADDISON: It wasn't meant to be.

EVE: I confide in you and rely on you more than anyone I've ever known! To say a thing like that now - without any reason - when I need you more than ever...

ADDISON: I hope you mean what you say, Eve. I intend to hold you to it.

ADDISON: Just like that, eh?

EVE: Just like that.

ADDISON: Do you know, Eve - sometimes I think you keep things from me.

ADDISON: Hungry?

EVE: Just some coffee.

ADDISON: I'm not surprised. After all that humble pie...

EVE: Nothing of the kind. Karen and I had a nice talk.

ADDISON: Heart to heart? Woman to woman? Including a casual reference to the part of "Cora" - and your hopes of playing it.

EVE: I discussed it very openly. I told her that I had spoken to Lloyd - and that he was interested.

ADDISON: She mentioned, of course, that Margo expects to play the part?

EVE: Oddly enough - she didn't say a word about Margo. Just that she'll be happy to do what she can to see that I play the part.

EVE: I'm about to go into the shower, I won't be able to hear you...

ADDISON: I can wait. Where would you like to go? We'll make this a special night...

EVE: You take charge.

ADDISON: I believe I will.

ADDISON: After you change, if you're not busy elsewhere, we can have supper.

EVE: I'd love to! Or should I pretend I'm busy?

ADDISON: Let's have a minimum of pretending. I'll want to do a column about you-

EVE: I'm not enough for a paragraph.

ADDISON: - perhaps more than one. There's so much I want to know. I've heard your story in bits and pieces... your home in Wisconsin, your tragic marriage, your financial attachment to Margo - it started in San Francisco, didn't it? I say - your idolatry of Margo started in San Francisco, didn't it?

EVE: That's right.

ADDISON: San Francisco. An oasis of civilization in the California desert. Tell me, do you share my high opinion of San Francisco?

EVE: Yes. I do.

ADDISON: And that memorable night when Margo first dazzled you from the stage - which theater was it in San Francisco? Was it - the Shubert?

EVE: Yes. The Shubert.

ADDISON: A fine old theater, the Shubert. Full of tradition, untouched by the earthquake - so sorry - fire... by the way, what was your husband's name?

EVE: Eddie...

ADDISON: Eddie what?

ADDISON: Of course your performance was no surprise to me. After the other day I regarded it as no more than - a promised fulfilled.

EVE: You're more than kind. But it's still Miss Channing's performance. I'm just a carbon copy you read when you can't find the original...

ADDISON: You're more than modest.

EVE: It's not modesty. I just don't try to kid myself.

ADDISON: A revolutionary approach to the Theater. However, if I may a suggestion...

EVE: Please do.

ADDISON: I think the time has come for you to shed some of your humility. It is just as false not to blow your horn at all as it is to blow it too loudly...

EVE: I don't think I've done anything to sound off about.

ADDISON: We all come into this world with our little egos equipped with individual horns. If we don't blow them - who will?

EVE: Even so. One isolated pretty good performance by an understudy. It'll be forgotten tomorrow.

ADDISON: It needn't be.

EVE: Even if I wanted to - as you say - be less humble, blow my own horn... how would I do it? I'm less than nobody.

ADDISON: I am somebody.

ADDISON: May I come in?

EVE: Certainly, Mr. deWitt...

ADDISON: I expected to find this little room overcrowded, with a theater full of people at your feet...

EVE: I consider myself lucky they didn't throw things.

MISS CASWELL: Tell me this. Do they have auditions for television?

ADDISON: That's all television is, my dear. Nothing but auditions.

ADDISON: Feeling better, my dear?

MISS CASWELL: Like I just swam the English Channel. Now what?

ADDISON: You next move, it seems to me, should be toward television.

ADDISON: Claudia dear, come closer. This is Max Fabian. He is a producer. Go do yourself some good.

MISS CASWELL: Why do they always look like unhappy rabbits?

ADDISON: Because that is what they are. Go make him happy.

ADDISON: This must be, at long last, our formal introduction. Until now we have met only in passing...

MISS CASWELL: That's how you met me. In passing.

MISS CASWELL: We never met. That's why.

ADDISON: Miss Caswell is an actress. A graduate of Copacabana School of Dramatic Arts. Ah... Eve.

MISS CASWELL: Let's go sit by the piano.

ADDISON: You have me confused with Dan Dailey. You go sit by the piano. And you come sit by me. Good night.

ADDISON: That isn't a waiter, my dear. That's a butler.

MISS CASWELL: Well, I can't yell "Oh, butler," can I? Maybe somebody's name is Butler...

ADDISON: You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point.

MISS CASWELL: I don't want to make trouble. All I want is a drink.

ADDISON: Every now and then, some elder statesman of the Theater or cinema assures the public that actors and actresses are just plain folk. Ignoring the fact that their greatest attraction to the public is their complete lack of resemblance to normal human beings.

MISS CASWELL: Now there's something a girl could make sacrifices for.

MAX: I'm giving her a very high-class party. It ain't like a rehearsal, she don't have to be late.

ADDISON: As soon as the peasants stop pawing her.

MAX: In my case it's necessary. Too many taxi drivers write plays.

ADDISON: And too many of them are produced.

MAX: Answer me this. What makes a man become a producer?

ADDISON: What makes a man walk into a lion cage with nothing but a chair?

MAX: This answer satisfies me a hundred percent.

ADDISON: We all have abnormality in common. We are a breed apart from the rest of the humanity, we Theater folk. We are the original displaced personalities...

ADDISON: It is senseless to insist that theatrical folk in New York, Hollywood and London are no different from the good people of Des Moines, Chillicothe and Liverpool. By and large, we are concentrated gatherings of neurotics, egomaniacs, emotional misfits, and precocious children-

MAX: Gable. Why a feller like that don't come East to do a play...

ADDISON: From the smartness of your dress, I take it your luncheon companion is a lady?

KAREN: Margo.

ADDISON: Margo? Lunching in public?

KAREN: It's new Margo. But she's just as late as the old one.

ADDISON: She may be later than you think...

ADDISON: She was magnificent.

KAREN: Then you've heard too.

ADDISON: I was there. An eyewitness.

KAREN: You were there? At the play - last night?

ADDISON: A happy coincidence.

KAREN: Then stop being a star - start treating your guests as your supporting cast!

ADDISON: Hear, hear...

ADDISON: Eve was incredibly modest. She insisted that no credit was due her, that Lloyd felt as he did only because she read lines exactly as he had written them.

MARGO: The implication being that I have not been reading them as written.

ADDISON: To the best of my recollection, neither your name nor your performance entered the conversation.

ADDISON: Margo, as you know, i have lived in the Theater as a Trappist monk lives in his faith. I have no other world, no other life - and once in a great while I experience that moment of Revelation for which all true believers wait and pray. You were one. Jeanne Eagels another... Paula Wessely... Hayes - there are others, three or four. Eve Harrington will be among them...

MARGO: I take it she read well.

ADDISON: It wasn't reading, it was a performance. Brilliant, vivid, something made of music and fire...

MARGO: How nice.

ADDISON: In time she'll be what you are.

MARGO: A mass of music and fire. That's me. An old kazoo and some sparkles. Tell me - was Bill swept away, too, or were you too full of Revelation to notice?

ADDISON: Bill didn't say - but Lloyd was beside himself. He listened to his play as if someone else had written it, he said, it sounded so fresh, so new, so full of meaning...

MARGO: How nice for Lloyd. And how nice for Eve. How nice for everybody.

MARGO: How... how was Miss Caswell?

ADDISON: Frankly, I don't remember.

MARGO: Just slipped your mind.

ADDISON: Completely. Nor, I am sure, could anyone else present tell you how Miss Caswell read or whether Miss Caswell read or rode a pogo stick.

MARGO: Was she that bad?

ADDISON: Miss Caswell got lucky too late. The audition is over.

MARGO: Over? It can't be. I've come to read with her. I promised Max.

ADDISON: The audition was called for 2:30. It is now nearly four.

MARGO: Is it really? I must start wearing a watch, I never do, you know... who read with Miss Caswell? Bill? Lloyd? Well, it couldn't have been Max! Who?

ADDISON: Naturally enough, your understudy.

MARGO: I consider it highly unnatural to allow a girl in an advanced state of pregnancy-

ADDISON: I refer to your new and unpregnant understudy. Eve Harrington.

MARGO: Eve! My understudy...

ADDISON: Didn't you know?

MARGO: Of course I knew.

ADDISON: It just slipped your mind.

MARGO: Why so remote, Addison? I should think you'd be at the side of your protegee, lending her moral support...

ADDISON: Miss Caswell, at the moment, is where I can lend no support - moral or otherwise.

MARGO: The ladies' - shall we say - lounge?

ADDISON: Being violently ill to her tummy.

MARGO: It's good luck before an audition. She'll be all right once it starts.

ADDISON: You mustn't worry about your little charge. She is in safe hands.

MARGO: Amen.

MARGO: Eve, this is an old friend of Mr. deWitt's mother - Miss Caswell, Miss Harrington... Addison, I've been wanting you to meet Eve for the longest time-

ADDISON: It could only have been your natural timidity that kept you from mentioning it...

MARGO: You've heard of her great interest in the Theater-

ADDISON: We have that in common.

MARGO: Then you two must have a long talk-

MARGO: I distinctly remember striking your name from the guest list. What are you doing here?

ADDISON: Dear Margo. You were an unforgettable Peter Pan - you must play it again, soon. You remember Miss Caswell?

MARGO: I do not. How do you do?

BILL: Nothing?

KAREN: Everything... everything's so funny...

KAREN: When? When are you going to do it?

BILL: Tomorrow we meet at City Hall at ten- - and you're going to be on time.

KAREN: I guess at this point I'm what the French call 'de trop'...

BILL: Maybe just a little around the edges.

BILL: Macbeth.

KAREN: We know you, we've seen you before like this. Is it over - or just beginning?

KAREN: Good luck, genius...

BILL: Geniuses don't need good luck. I do.

KAREN: You've already met.

BILL: Where?

KAREN: Right here. A minute ago.

BILL: That's nice.

KAREN: Bill!

BILL: Huh?

KAREN: This is Eve Harrington.

KAREN: Bill...

BILL: The air lines have clocks, even if you haven't! I start shooting a week from Monday - Zanuck is impatient, he wants me, he needs me!

KAREN: Bill-

BILL: Often enough to keep the franchise.

MARGO: A foursquare, upright, downright, forthright married lady... that's for me. And no more make believe! Off stage or on... remember, Lloyd. I mean it, now. Grown-up women only, I might even play a mother - only one child, of course, not over eight... Lloyd, will you promise not to be angry with me?

BILL: Never try to outguess Margo.

MARGO: Groom.

BILL: Yes, dear.

MARGO: You know what I'm going to be?

BILL: A cowboy.

MARGO: A married lady.

BILL: With the paper to prove it.

MARGO: I'm going to have a home. Not just a house I'm afraid to stay in... and a man to go with it. I'll look up at six o'clock - and there he'll be... remember, Karen?

MARGO: There goes Eve. Eve evil, Little Miss Evil. But the evil that men do - how does it go, groom? Something about the good they leave behind - I played it once in rep in Wilkes Barre...

BILL: You've got it backwards. Even for Wilkes-Barre.

MARGO: You know why I forgive Eve? Because she's left good behind - the four of us, together like this, it's Eve's fault - I forgive her...

MARGO: Groom- - may I have a wedding present?

BILL: What would you like? Texas?

MARGO: I want everybody to shut up about Eve. Just shut up about Eve, that's all I want. Give Karen more wine... ... never have I been so happy. Isn't this a lovely room? The Cub Room. What a lovely, clever name. Where the elite meet. Never have I seen so much elite - and all with their eyes on me. Waiting for me to crack that little gnome over the noggin with a bottle. But not tonight. Even Eve. I forgive Eve... there they go.

MARGO: "Please forgive me for butting into what seems such a happy occasion - but it's most important that I speak with you. Please" - it's underlined - "meet me in the Ladies' Room. Eve."

BILL: I understand she is now the understudy in there.

MARGO: Pass me the empty bottle. I may find her... why, look. There's Rasputin.

MARGO: Something simple. A fur coat over a nightgown...

BILL: The point is - in the cathedral, a ball park or a penny arcade - we want to have you two beside us our nearest and dearest friends.

BILL: It's only for the license. There's a three-day wait - blood tests, things like that...

MARGO: I'll marry you if it turns out you have no blood at all.

BILL: To Margo. To my bride-to-be.

MARGO: Glory Hallelujah.

BILL: The so-called art of acting is not one for which I have a particularly high regard...

MARGO: Hear, hear...

BILL: But you may quote me as follows. Quote. Tonight Miss Margo Channing gave a performance in your cockamamie play, the like of which I have never seen before and expect rarely to see again. Unquote.

MARGO: He does not exaggerate. I was good.

BILL: You were great.

MARGO: Bill... ... where are you going? To find Eve?

BILL: That suddenly makes the whole thing believable.

MARGO: It's obvious you're not a woman.

BILL: I've been aware of that for some time.

MARGO: Well, I am.

BILL: I'll say.

MARGO: Don't be condescending.

BILL: Come on, get up. I'll buy you a drink.

MARGO: I admit I may have seen better days, but I am still not to be had for the price of a cocktail - like a salted peanut.

BILL: Margo, let's make peace.

MARGO: The terms are too high. Unconditional surrender.

BILL: Just being happy? Just stopping all this nonsense about Eve - and Eve and me?

MARGO: It's not nonsense.

BILL: But if I tell you it is - as I just did. Were you listening to me? Isn't that enough?

MARGO: I wish it were.

BILL: Then what would be enough? If we were married?

MARGO: I wouldn't want you to marry me just to prove something.

BILL: You've had so many reasons for not wanting to marry me... Margo, tell me what's behind all this.

MARGO: I - I don't know, Bill. Just a feeling, I don't know...

BILL: I think you do know but you won't or can't tell me. I said before it was going to be my last try, and I meant it. I can't think of anything else to do. I wish I could. We usually wind up screaming and throwing things as the curtain comes down. Then it comes up again and everything's fine. But not this time. You know there isn't a playwright in the world who could make me believe this would happen between two adult people. Goodbye, Margo.

BILL: No, I'll tell it to you! For the last time, I'll tell it to you. Because you've got to stop hurting yourself, and me, and the two of us by these paranoiac tantrums!

MARGO: That word again! I don't even know what it means...

BILL: It's time you found out. I love you. I love you. You're a beautiful and intelligent woman- - a beautiful and intelligent woman and a great actress- - at the peak of her career. You have every reason for happiness- - every reason, but due to some strange, uncontrollable, unconscious drive you permit the slightest action of a kid- - kid like Eve to turn you into a hysterical, screaming harpy! Now once and for all, stop it!

MARGO: And you, I take it, are the Paderewski who plays his concerto on me, the piano? Where is Princess Fire-and-Music?

BILL: Who?

MARGO: The kid. Junior.

BILL: Gone.

MARGO: I must have frightened her away.

BILL: I wouldn't be surprised. Sometimes you frighten me.

MARGO: Poor little flower. Just dropped her petals and folded her tent...

BILL: Don't mix your metaphors.

MARGO: I mix what I like.

BILL: Okay. Mix.

MARGO: I'm nothing but a body with a voice. No mind.

BILL: What a body, what a voice.

MARGO: The ex-ship news' reporter. No body, no voice, all mind!

BILL: The gong rang. The fight's over. Calm down.

MARGO: I will not calm down!

BILL: Don't calm down.

MARGO: You're being terribly tolerant, aren't you?

BILL: I'm trying terribly hard.

MARGO: Well, you needn't. I will not be tolerated. And I will not be plotted against!

BILL: Here we go...

MARGO: Such nonsense, what do you all take me for - little Nell from the country? Been my understudy for over a week without my knowing, carefully hidden no doubt-

BILL: Now don't get carried away-

MARGO: - shows up for an audition when everyone knew I'd be here... and gives a performance! Out of nowhere - gives a performance!

BILL: You've been all through that with Lloyd-

MARGO: The playwright doesn't make the performance - and it doesn't just happen! And this one didn't - full of fire and music and whatnot, it was carefully rehearsed I have no doubt, over and over, full of those Bill Sampson touches!

BILL: I am sick and tired of these paranoiac outbursts!

MARGO: Paranoiac!

BILL: I didn't know Eve Harrington was your understudy until half past two this afternoon!

MARGO: Tell that to Dr. Freud! Along with the rest of it...

BILL: Addison-!

MARGO: So full of meaning, fire and music!

BILL: What fire and music?

MARGO: You wouldn't understand. How was Miss Caswell?

BILL: It's all over.

MARGO: What's all over?

BILL: The audition.

MARGO: Eve? How enchanting... Wherever did you get the idea of having Eve read with Miss Caswell?

BILL: No heart to burn.

MARGO: Everybody has a heart - except some people. Of course I've got bicarb. There's a box in the pantry. We'll put your name on it. Max Fabian. It'll say there. Always. Just for you.

BILL: Many of your guests have been wondering when they may be permitted to view the body. Where has it been laid out?

MARGO: It hasn't been laid out, we haven't finished with the embalming. As a matter of fact, you're looking at it. The remains of Margo Channing. Sitting up. It is my last wish to be buried sitting up.

BILL: Wouldn't you feel more natural taking a bow?

MARGO: You know nothing about feelings, natural or unnatural.

BILL: Then without feeling, your guests were also wondering whether the music couldn't be a shade more on the - shall we say, happier side?

MARGO: If my guests do not like it here, I suggest they accompany you to the nursery where I'm sure you will all feel more at home.

MARGO: Thank you.

BILL: Nothing, really...

MARGO: The kid - junior, that is - will be right down. Unless you'd like to take her drink up to her...

BILL: I can always get a fresh one. Karen - you're a Gibson girl...

BILL: I can't believe you're making this up - it sounds like something out of an old Clyde Fitch play...

MARGO: Clyde Fitch, thought you may not think so, was well before my time!

BILL: I've always denied the legend that you were in 'Our American Cousin' the night Lincoln was shot...

MARGO: I don't think that's funny!

BILL: Of course it's funny - this is all too laughable to be anything else. You know what I think about this - this age obsession of yours - and now this ridiculous attempt to whip yourself up into a jealous froth because I spent ten minutes with a stage-struck kid-

MARGO: Twenty minutes!

BILL: Thirty minutes, forty minutes! What of it?

MARGO: Stage-struck kid... she's a young lady - of qualities. And I'll have you know I'm fed up with both the young lady and her qualities! Studying me as if - as if I were a play or a set of blueprints! How I walk, talk, think, eat, sleep!

BILL: Now how can you take offense at a kid trying in every way to be as much like her ideal as possible!

MARGO: Stop calling her a kid! It so happens there are particular aspects of my life to which I would like to maintain sole and exclusive rights and privileges!

BILL: For instance what?

MARGO: For instance - you!

BILL: This is my cue to take you in my arms and reassure you - but I'm not going to. I'm too mad-

MARGO: - guilty.

BILL: Mad! Darling, there are certain characteristics for which you are famous - on stage and off. I love you for some of them - and in spite of others. I haven't let those become too important to me. They're part of your equipment for getting along in what is laughably called out environment - you've got to keep your teeth sharp. All right. But you will not sharpen them on me - or on Eve...

MARGO: What about her teeth? What about her fangs?

BILL: She hasn't cut them yet, and you know it! So when you start judging an idealistic dreamy-eyed kid by the barroom, Benzedrine standards of this megalomaniac society - I won't have it! Eve Harrington has never by word, look, thought or suggestion indicated anything to me but her adoration for you and her happiness at our being in love! And to intimate anything else doesn't spell jealousy to me - it spells a paranoic insecurity that you should be ashamed of!

MARGO: Cut! Print it! What happens in the next reel? Do I get dragged off screaming to the snake pit?

BILL: Looks like I'm going to have a very fancy party...

MARGO: I thought you were going to be late-

BILL: When I'm guest of honor?

MARGO: I had no idea you were even here.

BILL: I ran into Eve on my way upstairs; she told me you were dressing.

MARGO: That never stopped you before.

BILL: Well, we started talking, she wanted to know all about Hollywood, she seemed so interested...

MARGO: She's a girl of so many interests.

BILL: It's a pretty rare quality these days.

MARGO: She's a girl of so many rare qualities.

BILL: So she seems.

MARGO: So you've pointed out, so often. So many qualities, so often. Her loyalty, efficiency, devotion, warmth, affection - and so young. So young and so fair...

MARGO: Don't let me kill the point. Or isn't it a story for grownups?

BILL: You've heard it. About when I looked through the wrong end of a camera finder.

MARGO: Remind me to tell you about when I looked into the heart of an artichoke.

BILL: Need any help?

MARGO: To put me to bed? Take my clothes off, hold my head, tuck me in, turn off the lights, tiptoe out...? eve would. Wouldn't you, Eve?

MARGO: Happy little housewife...

BILL: Cut it out.

MARGO: This is my house, not a theater! In my house you're a guest, not a director-!

BILL: It's a good thought.

MARGO: It won't play.

BILL: Outside of a beehive, Margo, your behavior would hardly be considered either queenly or motherly!

MARGO: You're in a beehive, pal, didn't you know? We're all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night- - aren't we, honey?

MARGO: Happy birthday, darling...

BILL: The reading could have been better, but you said it - now "many happy returns of the day..."

MARGO: Many happy returns of the day...

BILL: I get a party, don't I?

MARGO: Of course, birthday and welcome home... who'll I ask?

BILL: It's no secret, I know all about the party - Eve wrote me...

MARGO: She did...?

BILL: She hasn't missed a week since I left - but you know all that, you probably tell her what to write... anyway, I sent her a list of people to ask - check with her.

MARGO: Yeah... I will.

BILL: How is Eve? Okay?

MARGO: Okay.

BILL: I love you...

MARGO: I'll check with Eve...

BILL: What?

MARGO: I love you too. Good night, darling-

BILL: See you...

MARGO: Bill... Bill, it's your birthday.

BILL: And who remembered it? Who was there on the dot, at twelve midnight...?

BILL: What a thoughtful, ever-lovin' thing to do-

MARGO: Bill? Have I gone crazy, Bill?

BILL: You're my girl, aren't you?

MARGO: That I am...

BILL: Then you're crazy.

MARGO: When - when are you coming back?

BILL: I leave in a week - the picture's all wrapped up, we previewed last night... those previews. Like opening out of town, but terrifying. There's nothing you can do, you're trapped, you're in a tin can-

MARGO: - in a tin can, cellophane or wrapped in a Navajo blanket, I want you home...

BILL: You in a hurry?

MARGO: A big hurry, be quick about it - so good night, darling, and sleep tight...

BILL: Wait a minute! You can't hang up, you haven't even said it-

MARGO: Bill, you know how much I do - but over the phone, now really, that's kid stuff...

BILL: Kid stuff or not, it doesn't happen every day, I want to heat it - and if you won't say it, you can sing it...

MARGO: Sing it?

BILL: Sure! Like the Western Union boys used to do...

BILL: Knit me a muffler.

MARGO: Call me when you get in...

MARGO: Take care of yourself out there...

BILL: I understand they've got the Indians pretty well in hand...

MARGO: Bill...

BILL: Huh?

MARGO: Don't get stuck on some glamour puss-

BILL: I'll try.

MARGO: You're not such a bargain, you know, conceited and thoughtless and messy-

BILL: Everybody can't be Gregory Peck.

MARGO: - you're a setup for some gorgeous wide-eyed young babe.

BILL: How childish are you going to get before you quit it?

MARGO: I don't want to be childish, I'd settle for just a few years-

BILL: And cut that out right now.

MARGO: Am I going to lose you, Bill? Am I?

BILL: As of this moment you're six years old...

BILL: She's quite a girl, that what's-her name...

MARGO: Eve. I'd forgotten they grew that way...

BILL: The lack of pretense, that sort of strange directness and understanding-

MARGO: Did she tell you about the Theater and what it meant?

BILL: I told her. I sounded off.

MARGO: All the religions in the world rolled into one, and we're Gods and Goddesses... isn't it silly, suddenly I've developed a big protective feeling for her - a lamb loose in our big stone jungle...

MARGO: Can't keep his eyes off my legs.

BILL: Like a nylon lemon peel-

MARGO: Byron couldn't have said it more graciously... here we go-

MARGO: Oh well... ... look through the wigs, maybe it got caught-

BILL: Real diamonds in a wig. The world we live in...

MARGO: Where's my coat?

BILL: Hi. My wonderful junk yard. The mystery and dreams you find in a junk yard-

MARGO: Heaven help me, I love a psychotic.

BILL: Only in some ways. You're prettier...

MARGO: I'm a junk yard.

BILL: Forty-five minutes from now my plane takes off and how do I find you? Not ready yet, looking like a junk yard-

MARGO: Thank you so much.

BILL: Is it sabotage, does my career mean nothing to you? Have you no human consideration?

MARGO: Show me a human and I might have!

EVE: Don't run away, Bill.

BILL: From what would I be running?

EVE: You're always after truth - on the stage. What about off?

BILL: I'm for it.

EVE: Then face it. I have. Since that first night - here - in the dressing room.

BILL: When I told you what every young actress should know.

EVE: When you told me that whatever I became, it would be because of you-

BILL: Your make-up's a little heavy.

EVE: - and for you.

BILL: You're quite a girl.

EVE: You think?

BILL: I'm in love with Margo. Hadn't you heard?

EVE: You hear all kinds of things.

BILL: I'm only human, rumors to the contrary. And I'm as curious as the next man...

EVE: Find out.

BILL: Only thing, what I go after, I want to go after. I don't want it to come after me.

BILL: - little things here and there, it doesn't matter. You can be proud of yourself, you've got a right to be.

EVE: Are you proud of me, Bill?

BILL: I'll admit I was worried when Max called. I had my doubts.

EVE: You shouldn't have had any doubts.

BILL: - after all, the other day was one scene, the woods are full of one scene sensations. But you did it. With work and patience, you'll be a fine actress. If that's what you want to be.

EVE: Is that what you want me to be?

BILL: I'm talking about you. And what you want.

EVE: So am I.

BILL: What have I got to do with it?

EVE: Everything.

BILL: The names I've been called. But never Svengali. Good luck.

EVE: Yes. Yes, it does.

BILL: It means concentration of ambition, desire, and sacrifice such as no other profession demands... And I'll agree that the man or woman who accepts those terms can't be ordinary, can't be - just someone. To give so much for almost always so little...

BILL: Thanks for your help... good luck.

EVE: Goodbye, Mr. Sampson.

BILL: Ah...

EVE: I have a suggestion. There's really not much time left - I mean, you haven't had a minute alone yet, and - well, I could take care of everything here and meet you at the gate with the ticket... if you'd like.

BILL: I think we'd like very much. Sure you won't mind?

EVE: Of course not.

EVE: I read George Jean Nathan every week.

BILL: Also Addison deWitt.

EVE: Every day.

BILL: You didn't have to tell me.

EVE: But Hollywood. You mustn't stay there.

BILL: It's only one picture deal.

EVE: So few come back...

BILL: Yeah. They keep you under drugs out there with armed guards...

BILL: Why?

EVE: I just wondered.

BILL: Just wondered what?

EVE: Why.

BILL: Why what?

EVE: Why you have to go out there.

BILL: I don't have to. I want to.

EVE: Is it the money?

BILL: Eighty percent of it will go for taxes.

EVE: Then why? Why, if you're the best and most successful young director in the Theater-

BILL: The Theatuh, the Theatuh- - what book of rules says the Theater exists only within some ugly buildings crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London, Paris or Vienna? Listen, junior. And learn. Want to know what the Theater is? A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man band - all Theater. Wherever there's magic and make-believe and an audience - there's Theater. Donald Duck, Ibsen, and The Lone Ranger, Sarah Bernhardt, Poodles Hanneford, Lunt and Fontanne, Betty Grable, Rex and Wild, and Eleanora Duse. You don't understand them all, you don't like them all, why should you? The Theater's for everybody - you included, but not exclusively - so don't approve or disapprove. It may not be your Theater, but it's Theater of somebody, somewhere.

EVE: I just asked a simple question.

BILL: And I shot my mouth off. Nothing personal, junior, no offense... ... it's just that there's so much bushwah in this Ivory Green Room they call the Theatuh - sometimes it gets up around my chin...

EVE: You said forty-seven minutes. You'll never make it.

BILL: I told you a lie. We'll make it easily. Margo's got no more conception of time than a halibut.

BILL: Hello, what's your name?

EVE: Eve. Eve Harrington.

KAREN: Bill says actors out there eat just as infrequently as here-

BIRDIE: They can always grab oranges off trees. This you can't do in Times Square...

BIRDIE: The bed looks like a dead animal act. Which one is sables?

KAREN: But she just got here...

BIRDIE: She's on her way. With half the men in the joint. It's only a fur coat...

KAREN: What did you expect - live sables?

BIRDIE: A diamond collar, gold sleeves - you know, picture people...

KAREN: Margo does not play a lunatic, Birdie.

BIRDIE: I know. She just keeps hearin' her dead father play the banjo.

BIRDIE: Lemme fix you a drink.

KAREN: No thanks, Birdie.

BIRDIE: You all put together?

MARGO: My back's open. Did the extra help get here?

BIRDIE: There's some loose characters dressed like maids and butlers. Who'd you call - the William Morris Agency?

MARGO: You're not being funny, I could get actors for less. What about the food?

BIRDIE: The caterer had to back for hors d'oeuvres- Voila.

MARGO: That French ventriloquist taught you a lot, didn't he?

BIRDIE: There was nothing he didn't know. There's a message from the bartender. Does Miss Channing know we ordered domestic gin by mistake?

MARGO: The only thing I ordered by mistake is the guests. They're domestic, too, and they don't care what they drink as long as it burns... where's Bill? He's late.

BIRDIE: Late for what?

MARGO: Don't be dense. The party.

BIRDIE: I ain't dense. And he's been here twenty minutes.

MARGO: Well, I certainly think it's odd he hasn't even come up...

BIRDIE: I'll tell you how. Like - let's see - like she was studyin' you, like you were a play or a book or a set of blueprints. How you walk, talk, think, eat, sleep-

MARGO: I'm sure that's very flattering, Birdie, and I'm sure there's nothing wrong with that!

MARGO: Birdie-

BIRDIE: Hmm?

MARGO: You don't like Eve, do you?

BIRDIE: Do you want an argument or an answer?

MARGO: An answer.

BIRDIE: No.

MARGO: Why not?

BIRDIE: Now you want an argument.

MARGO: She works hard.

BIRDIE: Night an' day.

MARGO: She's loyal and efficient-

BIRDIE: Like an agent with one client.

MARGO: She thinks only for me... ... doesn't she?

BIRDIE: Well... let's say she thinks only about you, anyway...

MARGO: How do you mean that?

BIRDIE: If I may so bold as to say something - did you ever hear the word "union"?

MARGO: Behind in your dues? How much?

BIRDIE: I haven't got a union. I'm slave labor.

MARGO: Well?

BIRDIE: But the wardrobe women have got one. And next to a tenor, a wardrobe woman is the touchiest thing in show business-

MARGO: Oh-oh.

BIRDIE: She's got two things to do - carry clothes an' press 'em wrong - an' just let anybody else muscle in...

BIRDIE: Adorable. We now got everything a dressing room needs except a basketball hoop.

MARGO: Just because you can't even work a zipper. It was very thoughtful, Eve, and I appreciate it-

MARGO: You bought the new girdles a size smaller. I can feel it.

BIRDIE: Something maybe grew a size bigger.

MARGO: When we get home you're going to get into one of those girdles and act for two and half hours.

BIRDIE: I couldn't get into the girdle in two an' a half hours...

BIRDIE: Kill the people. Got your key?

MARGO: See you home...

MARGO: She, too, is a great admirer of yours.

BIRDIE: Imagine. All this admiration in just one room.

MARGO: There are some human experiences, Birdie, that do not take place in a vaudeville house - and that even a fifth-rate vaudevillian should understand and respect! I want to apologize for Birdie's-

BIRDIE: You don't have to apologize for me! I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. It's just my way of talkin'...

MARGO: I'm sure you must have things to do in the bathroom, Birdie dear.

BIRDIE: If I haven't, I'll find something till you're normal.

MARGO: And this is my good friend and companion, Miss Birdie Coonan.

BIRDIE: Oh, brother.

MARGO: Miss Coonan...

MARGO: How do you do, my dear.

BIRDIE: Oh, brother.

BIRDIE: You need new girdles.

MARGO: Buy some.

BIRDIE: The same size?

MARGO: Of course!

BIRDIE: Well. I guess a real tight girdle help when you're playin' a lunatic.

MARGO: It was Fort Sumter they fired on-

BIRDIE: I never played Fort Sumter.

EVE: That's the door.

GIRL: You rest. I'll get it...

EVE: It's after one now. You won't get home till all hours.

GIRL: I don't care if I never get home.

EVE: How'd you get all the way up here from Brooklyn?

GIRL: Subway.

EVE: How long does it take?

GIRL: With changing and everything, a little over an hour.

EVE: The maid'll fix it in the morning.

GIRL: I'll just pick up the broken glass.

EVE: Don't bother.

GIRL: You're going to Hollywood - aren't you? From the trunks you're packing, you must be going to stay a long time.

EVE: I might.

GIRL: That spilled drink is going to ruin your carper.

GIRL: Please don't have me arrested, please! I didn't steal anything - you can search me!

EVE: How did you get in here?

GIRL: I hid outside in the hall till the maid came to turn down your bed. She must've forgot something and when she went to get it, she left the door open. I sneaked in and hid till she finished. Then I just looked around - and pretty soon I was afraid somebody'd notice the lights were on so I turned them off - and then I guess, I fell asleep.

EVE: You were just looking around...

GIRL: That's all.

EVE: What for?

GIRL: You probably won't believe me.

EVE: Probably not.

GIRL: It was for my report.

EVE: What report? To whom?

GIRL: About how you live, what kind of clothes you wear - what kind of perfume and books - things like that. You know the Eve Harrington clubs - that they've got in most of the girls' high schools?

EVE: I've heard of them.

GIRL: Ours was one of the first. Erasmus Hall. I'm the president.

EVE: Erasmus Hall. That's in Brooklyn, isn't it?

GIRL: Lots of actresses come from Brooklyn. Barbara Stanwyck, Susan Hayward - of course, they're just movie stars.

EVE: Who are you?

GIRL: Miss Harrington...

EVE: What are you doing here?

GIRL: I - I guess I fell asleep.

KAREN: Congratulations, Eve.

EVE: Thank you, Karen.

KAREN: She knows enough not to be here.

EVE: But not all of it - not that Lloyd and I are going to be married.

KAREN: A part in a play. You'd do all that - just for a part in a play.

EVE: I'd do much more - for a part that good.

EVE: Addison wants me to play it.

KAREN: Over my dead body...

EVE: That won't be necessary. Addison knows how Margo happen to miss that performance - how I happened to know she'd miss it in time to call him and notify every paper in town... ... it's quite a story. Addison could make quite a thing of it - imagine how snide and vicious he could get and still write nothing but the truth. I had a time persuading him... ... you'd better sit down. You look a bit wobbly. If I play "Cora," Addison will never tell what happened - in or out of print. A simple exchange of favors. And I'm so happy I can do something for you - at long last... Your friendship with Margo - your deep, close friendship - what would happen to it, do you think, if she knew the chap trick you'd played on her - for my benefit? And you and Lloyd - how long, even in the Theater, before people forgot what happened - and trusted you again? No... it would be so much easier on everyone concerned, if I were to play "Cora." And so much better theater, too...

KAREN: I think I know...

EVE: Something most important you can do.

KAREN: You want to play "Cora." You want me to tell Lloyd I think you should play it.

EVE: If you told him so, he'd give me the part. He said he would.

KAREN: After all you've said... don't you know the part was written for Margo?

EVE: It could have been - fifteen years ago. It's my part now.

KAREN: You talk just as Addison said you did.

EVE: "Cora" is my part. You've got to tell Lloyd it's for me.

KAREN: I don't think anything in the world could make me say that.

KAREN: Eve. I - I don't think you meant to cause unhappiness. But you did. More to yourself, perhaps - as it turned out - than to anyone else...

EVE: I'll never get over it.

KAREN: Yes, you will. You Theater people always do. Nothing is forever in the Theater. Love or hate, success or failure - whatever it is, it's here, it flares up and burns hot - and then it's gone.

EVE: I wish I could believe that.

KAREN: Give yourself time. Don't worry too much about what people think, you're very young and very talented... ... and, believe it or not, if there's anything I can do-

KAREN: Eve... don't cry.

EVE: I'm not crying.

KAREN: Tell me. How did your lunch turn out - with the man from Hollywood?

EVE: Some vague promises of a test, that's all - if a particular part should come along, one of those things-

KAREN: But the raves about your performance-

EVE: - an understudy's performance.

KAREN: Well. I think you're painting the picture a little darker than it is, really. If nothing else - and don't underestimate him - you have a powerful friend in Addison.

EVE: He's not my friend. You were my friends...

KAREN: He can help you.

EVE: I wish I'd never met him, I'd like him to be dead... I want my friends back.

EVE: You know, I've always considered myself a very clever girl. Smart. Good head on my shoulders, that sort of thing, never the wrong word at the wrong time... but then, I'd never met Addison deWitt. I remember once I had a tooth pulled. They gave me some anaesthetic - I don't remember the name - and it affected me in a strange way. I heard myself saying things I wasn't even thinking... as if my mind were someplace outside of my body, and couldn't control what I did or said-

KAREN: - and you felt just like that talking to Addison.

EVE: In a way. You find yourself trying to say what you mean, but somehow the words change - and they become his words - and suddenly you're not saying what you mean, but what he means-

KAREN: Do you expect me to believe that you didn't say any of those things - that they were all Addison?

EVE: No! I don't expect you to believe anything. Except that the responsibility is mine. And the disgrace.

KAREN: Let's not get over-dramatic.

EVE: You've really got a low opinion of me, haven't you? We'll I'll give you some pleasant news. I've been told off in no uncertain terms all over town. Miss Channing should be happy to hear that. To know how loyal her friends are - how much more loyal they are than she had a right to expect me to be...

EVE: I've got a lot to say. And none of it is easy.

KAREN: There can't be very much-

EVE: Oh, but there is-

KAREN: - and easy or not, I won't believe a word.

EVE: Why shouldn't you? Please sit down.

EVE: I was wondering whether you'd come at all..

KAREN: Don't get up. And don't act as if I were the queen mother.

EVE: I don't expect you to be pleasant.

KAREN: I don't intend to be.

EVE: Can't we sit down? Just for a minute...

EVE: We're having lunch with a movie talent scout.

KAREN: They certainly don't waste much time.

EVE: Nothing definite yet - it's just to have lunch.

KAREN: Eve. I've heard the most wonderful things about your performance-

EVE: Mostly relief that I managed to stagger through it at all...

EVE: May I have your coat?

KAREN: Don't bother, I can take it up myself...

EVE: Please...

EVE: Karen... ... you won't forget, will you? What we talked about before?

KAREN: No, Eve, I won't forget...

KAREN: You mustn't mind Margo too much, even if I do...

EVE: But there must be some reason, something I've done without knowing...

KAREN: The reason is Margo and don't try to figure it out. Einstein couldn't.

EVE: If I thought I'd offended her, of all people-

KAREN: Eve. I'm fond of Margo too. But I know Margo. And every now and then there is nothing I want to do so much as to kick her right square in the pants.

EVE: Well - if she's got to pick on someone, I'd just as soon it was me.

EVE: Then - would you talk to Mr. Fabian about it?

KAREN: Of course.

EVE: You won't forget it?

KAREN: I won't forget.

EVE: I seem to be forever thanking you for something, don't I?

KAREN: ... you want to be Margo's new understudy.

EVE: I don't let myself think about it, even- - but I do know the part so well, and every bit of the staging, there'd be no need to break in a new girl- - but suppose I had to go on one night? To an audience that came to see Margo Channing. No, I couldn't possibly...

KAREN: Don't worry too much about that. Margo just doesn't miss performances. If she can walk, crawl or roll - she plays.

EVE: The show must go on.

KAREN: No, dear. Margo must go on. As a matter of fact, I see no reason why you shouldn't be Margo's understudy...

EVE: Do you think Miss Channing would approve?

KAREN: I think she would cheer.

EVE: But Mr. Richards and Mr. Sampson-

KAREN: They'll do as they're told.

EVE: Mrs. Richards.

KAREN: Karen.

EVE: Karen... ... isn't it awful, I'm about to ask you for another favor - after all you've already done.

KAREN: Nobody's done so much, Eve, you've got to stop thinking of yourself as one of the Hundred Neediest Cases... what is it?

EVE: Well... Miss Channing's affairs are in such good shape... there isn't enough to keep me as busy as I should be, really - not that I've ever considered anything that would take me away from her... but the other day - when I heard Mr. Fabian tell Miss Channing that her understudy was going to have a baby, and they'd have to replace her...

EVE: There should be a new word for happiness. Being here with Miss Channing has been - I just can't say, she's been so wonderful, done so much for me-

KAREN: Lloyd says Margo compensates for underplaying on the stage by overplaying reality... ... next to that sable, my new mink seems like an old bedjacket... ... you've done your share, Eve. You've worked wonders with Margo...

KAREN: Now who's show up at this hour? It's time people went home - hold that coat up... ... whose is it?

EVE: Some Hollywood movie star, her plane got in late.

KAREN: Discouraging, isn't it? Women with furs like that where it never gets cold...

EVE: Hollywood.

KAREN: Tell me, Eve - how are things with you? Happy?

KAREN: Good night, Eve. I hope I see you again soon-

EVE: I'll be at the old stand, tomorrow matinee-

KAREN: Not just that way. As a friend...

EVE: I'd like that.

KAREN: You're not going, are you?

EVE: I think I'd better. It's been - well, I can hardly find the words to say how it's been...

KAREN: Eve... why don't you start at the beginning?

EVE: It couldn't possibly interest you.

EVE: If I only knew how...

KAREN: Try...

EVE: Well...

EVE: Hello, Miss Channing.

KAREN: My husband...

EVE: I thought you'd forgotten about me.

KAREN: Not at all. Margo, this is Eve Harrington.

KAREN: There isn't another like you, there couldn't be-

EVE: But if I'd known... maybe some other time... I mean, looking like this.

KAREN: You look just fine... ... by the way. What's your name?

EVE: Eve. Eve Harrington.

KAREN: I'm going to take you to Margo...

EVE: Oh, no...

KAREN: She's got to meet you-

EVE: No, I'd be imposing on her, I'd be just another tongue-tied gushing fan...

KAREN: So there you are. It seemed odd, suddenly, your not being there...

EVE: Why should you think I wouldn't be?

KAREN: Why should you be? After all, six nights a week - for weeks - of watching even Margo Channing enter and leave a theater-

EVE: I hope you don't mind my speaking to you...

KAREN: Not at all.

EVE: I've seen you so often - it took every bit of courage I could raise-

KAREN: To speak to just a playwright's wife? I'm the lowest form of celebrity...

EVE: You're Margo Channing's best friend. You and your husband are always with her - and Mr. Sampson... what's he like?

KAREN: Bill Sampson? He's - he's a director.

EVE: He's the best.

KAREN: He'll agree with you. Tell me, what do you between the time Margo goes in and comes out? Just huddle in that doorway and wait?

EVE: Oh, no. I see the play.

KAREN: You see the play? You've seen the play every performance? But, don't you find it - I mean apart from everything else - don't you find it expensive?

EVE: Standing room doesn't cost much. I manage.

LLOYD: Back to Copacabana. But Eve. Margo, let me tell you about Eve-

EVE: I was dreadful, Miss Channing, believe me - I have no right to be anyone's understudy, much less yours...

LLOYD: It's been a real pleasure, Eve.

EVE: I hope so, Mr. Richards. Good night...

EVE: I guess it started back home. Wisconsin, that is. There was just mum, and dad - and me. I was the only child, and I made believe a lot when I was a kid - I acted out all sorts of things... what they were isn't important. But somehow acting and make-believe began to fill up my life more and more, it got so that I couldn't tell the real from the unreal except that the unreal seemed more real to me... I'm talking a lot of gibberish, aren't I?

LLOYD: Not at all...

EVE: Farmers were poor in those days, that's what dad was - a farmer. I had to help out. So I quit school and I went to Milwaukee. I became a secretary. In a brewery. When you're a secretary in a brewery - it's pretty hard to make believe you're anything else. Everything is beer. It wasn't much fun, but it helped at home - and there was a Little Theater Group... like a drop of rain in the desert. That's where I met Eddie. He was a radio technician. We played 'Liliom' for three performances, I was awful - then the war came, and we got married. Eddie was in the air force - and they sent him to the South Pacific. You were with the O.W.I., weren't you Mr. Richards? That's what 'Who's Who' says... well, with Eddie gone, my life went back to beer. Except for a letter a week. One week Eddie wrote he had a leave coming up. I'd saved my money and vacation time. I went to San Francisco to meet him. Eddie wasn't there. They forwarded the telegram from Milwaukee - the one that came from Washington to say that Eddie wasn't coming at all. That Eddie was dead... ... so I figured I'd stay in San Francisco. i was alone, but couldn't go back without Eddie. I found a job. And his insurance helped... and there were theaters in San Francisco. And one night Margo Channing came to play in 'Remembrance'... and I went to see it. And - well - here I am...

EVE: Well... it started with the play before this one...

LLOYD: 'Remembrance'.

LLOYD: How'd hear about it?

EVE: There was an item in the Times. i like the title. 'Footsteps on the Ceiling'.

LLOYD: Let's get back to this one. Have you really seen every performance? Why? I'm curious...

EVE: No, thank you. Yes. I've seen every performance.

LLOYD: Every performance? Then - am I safe in assuming you like it?

EVE: I'd like anything Miss Channing played...

LLOYD: Hello, Miss Harrington.

EVE: How do you do, Mr. Richards.

EVE: Miss Channing, I can't tell you how glad I am that you arrived so late.

MARGO: Really, Eve? Why?

EVE: Well, if you'd been here to begin with, I wouldn't have dared to read at all...

MARGO: Why not?

EVE: ... and if you'd come in the middle, I'd have stopped, I couldn't have gone on-

MARGO: What a pity, all that fire and music being turned off...

MARGO: Terribly sorry I'm late, lunch was long and I couldn't find a cab - where's Miss Caswell, shall we start? Oh, hello, Eve...

EVE: Hello, Miss Channing.

MARGO: How are you making out in Mr. Fabian's office? I don't want you working the child too hard, Max - just because you promised. As you see, I kept my promise, too...

EVE: Good evening, Mr. deWitt.

MARGO: I had no idea you knew each other.

EVE: The hors d'oeuvres are here. Is there anything else I can do?

MARGO: Thank you, Eve. I'd like a Martini - very dry.

EVE: I'd like to hear it.

MARGO: Some snowy night in front of the fire... in the meantime, while we're on the subject, will you check about the hors d'oeuvres? The caterer forgot them, the varnish wasn't dry or something...

EVE: Of course.

EVE: If you'd like.

MARGO: I wouldn't like.

MARGO: Don't get up. And please stop acting as if I were the queen mother.

EVE: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-

EVE: Well - what do you think of my elegant new suit?

MARGO: Very becoming. It looks better on you than it did on me.

EVE: I can imagine... you know, all it needed was some taking in here and letting out there - are you sure you won't want it yourself?

MARGO: Quite sure. I find it just a bit too - too "Seventeenish" for me...

EVE: Oh, come now, as though you were an old lady... I'm on my way. Is there anything more you've thought of-?

MARGO: There's the script to go back to the Guild-

EVE: I've got it.

MARGO: - and those checks or whatever it is for the income tax man.

EVE: Right here.

MARGO: It seems I can't think of a thing you haven't thought of...

EVE: That's my job. See you at tea time...

MARGO: Eve... ... by any chance, did you place a call from me to Bill for midnight California time?

EVE: Oh, golly. And I forgot to tell you-

MARGO: Yes, dear. You forgot all about it.

EVE: Well, I was sure you'd want to, of course, being his birthday, and you've been so busy these past few days, and last night I meant to tell you before you went out with the Richards - and I guess I was asleep when you got home...

MARGO: Yes, I guess you were. It - it was very thoughtful of you, Eve.

EVE: Mr. Sampson's birthday. I certainly wouldn't forget that. You'd never forgive me. As a matter of fact, I sent him a telegram myself...

EVE: While you're cleaning up, I'll take this to the wardrobe mistress-

MARGO: Don't bother. Mrs. Brown'll be along for it in a minute.

EVE: No trouble at all.

EVE: You haven't noticed my latest bit of interior decorating...

MARGO: Well, you've done so much... what's new?

EVE: The curtains. I made them myself.

MARGO: They are lovely. Aren't they lovely, Birdie?

EVE: I must say you can certainly tell Mr. Sampson's been gone a month.

MARGO: You certainly can. Especially if you're me between now and tomorrow morning...

EVE: I mean the performance. Except for you, you'd think he'd never even directed it - it's disgraceful the way they change everything around...

MARGO: Well, teacher's away and actors will be actors...

EVE: During your second act scene with your father, Roger Ferraday's supposed to stay way upstage at the arch. He's been coming closer down every night...

MARGO: When he gets too close, I'll spit in his eye.

MARGO: What - again?

EVE: I could watch you play that last scene a thousand times and cry every time-

MARGO: Performance number one thousand of this one - if I play it that long - will take place in a well-padded booby hatch...

MARGO: Stick around. Please. Tell you what - we'll put Stanislavsky on his plane, you and I, then go somewhere and talk.

EVE: Well - if I'm not in the way...

MARGO: I won't be a minute.

MARGO: No, don't go...

EVE: The four of you must have so much to say to each other - with Mr. Sampson leaving...

MARGO: Did you see it here in New York?

EVE: San Francisco. It was the last week. I went one night... the most important night in my life - until this one. Anyway... I found myself going the next night - and the next and the next. Every performance. Then, when the show went East - I went East.

EVE: Well. If I didn't come to see the play, I wouldn't have anywhere else to go.

MARGO: There are other plays...

EVE: Not with you in them. Not by Mr. Richards...

EVE: Please, don't misunderstand me, Mr. Richards. I think that part of Miss Channing's greatness lies in her ability to choose the best plays... your new play is for Miss Channing, isn't it, Mr. Richards?

MARGO: Of course it is.

KAREN: I remember.

MARGO: You'll be there, won't you.

MARGO: With tears?

KAREN: With tears.

MARGO: But not right away? First the business of fighting them off, chin up, stout fella...

KAREN: Check.

MARGO: Very classy stuff, lots of technique-

MARGO: Karen, in all the years of our friendship, I have never let you go to the Ladies' Room alone. But now I must. I am busting to know what goes on in that feverish little brain waiting there...

KAREN: Well... all right.

MARGO: In this rat race, everybody's guilty till they're proved innocent! One of the differences between the Theater and civilization... ... what gets me is how all of those papers in town happened to catch that particular performance!

KAREN: Lloyd says it's a publicity release...

MARGO: The little witch must have had Indians runners out snatching critics out of bars, steam rooms and museums or wherever they hole up... well, she won't get away with it! Nor will Addison deWitt and his poison pen! If Equity or my lawyer can't or won't do anything about it, I will personally stuff that pathetic little lost lamb down Mr. deWitt's ugly throat...

MARGO: "... my hat which has, lo, these many seasons become more firmly rooted about my ears, is lifted to Miss Harrington. I am once more available for dancing in the streets and shouting from the housetops." ... I thought that one went out with Woollcott... Down here... here, listen to this- "... Miss Harrington had much to tell - and these columns shall report her faithfully - about the lamentable practice in our Theater of permitting, shall we say - mature - actresses to continue playing roles requiring a youth and vigor of which they retain but a dim memory-"

KAREN: I just can't believe it.

MARGO: It get better! "- About the understandable reluctance on the part of our entrenched First Ladies of the Stage to encourage, shall we say - younger - actresses; about Miss Harrington's own long and unsupported struggle for opportunity-"

KAREN: I can't believe Eve said those things!

KAREN: Margo. Margo, I want you to know how sorry I am about this...

MARGO: About what?

KAREN: This. I can't tell you how sorry I am!

MARGO: Don't give it another thought, one of destiny's many pranks. After all, you didn't personally drain the gasoline out of the tank...

MARGO: About Eve. I've acted pretty disgracefully toward her, too.

KAREN: Well...

MARGO: Let's not fumble for excuses, not here and now with my hair down. At best, let's say I've been oversensitive to... well, to the fact that she's so young - so feminine and helpless. To so many things I want to be for Bill... funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder, so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you go back to being a woman. That's one career all females have in common - whether we like it or not - being a woman. Sooner or later we've all got to work at it, no matter what other careers we've had or wanted... and, in the last analysis, nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turns around in bed - and there he is. Without that, you're not woman. You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings - but you're not a woman... ... slow curtain. The end.

MARGO: I don't suppose the heater runs when the motor doesn't?

KAREN: Silly, isn't it? You'd think they'd fix it so people could just sit in a car and keep warm...

KAREN: What about Bill?

MARGO: What about Bill?

KAREN: He's in love with you.

MARGO: More than anything in this world, I love Bill. And I want Bill. I want him to want me. But me. Not Margo Channing. And if I can't tell they apart - how can he?

KAREN: Why should he - and why should you?

MARGO: Bill's in love with Margo Channing. He's fought with her, worked with her, loved her... but ten years from now - Margo Channing will have ceased to exist. And what's left will be... what?

KAREN: Margo. Bill is all of eight years younger than you.

MARGO: Those years stretch as the years go on. I've seen it happen too often.

KAREN: Not to you. Not to Bill.

MARGO: Isn't that what they always say?

MARGO: Karen. I haven't been pleasant this weekend.

KAREN: We've all seemed a little tense lately...

MARGO: Come to think of it, I haven't been very pleasant for weeks. For that, I'm truly sorry. More than any two people I know, I don't want you and Lloyd to be angry with me...

KAREN: We're never deeply angry, we just get sore. The way you do. We know you too well...

MARGO: So many people - know me. I wish I did. I wish someone would tell be about me...

KAREN: You're Margo. Just - Margo.

MARGO: And what is that? Besides something spelled out in light bulbs, I mean. Besides something called temperament, which consists mostly of swooping about on a broomstick creaming at the top of my voice... infants behave the way I do, you know. They carry on and misbehave - they'd get drunk if they knew how - when they can't have what they want. When they feel unwanted and insecure - or unloved.

MARGO: Do you want it on?

KAREN: It doesn't matter.

MARGO: I detest cheap sentiment.

KAREN: He always looks so pathetic whenever he does anything physical-

MARGO: It seems to me that walking, for most people, is not very dangerous.

KAREN: I just never think of Lloyd as anywhere but indoors and anything but sitting down.

MARGO: Be brave. He'll come back - with or without gas.

MARGO: How much time have we?

KAREN: Roughly ten minutes.

MARGO: How far to the station?

KAREN: Three or four miles...

MARGO: Any houses or farms around where we can borrow gas?

KAREN: None in sight, there aren't many along this back road...

MARGO: Not many car either, not much chance of a lift...

MARGO: That little place just two hours form New York. It's on my list of things-I'll-never-understand. Like collecting shrunken Indian heads...

KAREN: Of all people you should know what it means to want some peace and quiet-

MARGO: Peace and quit is for libraries.

KAREN: Margo, nothing you've ever done has made me as happy as your taking Eve in...

MARGO: I'm so happy you're happy.

KAREN: Margo, really...

MARGO: Please don't play governess, Karen, I haven't your unyielding good taste, I wish I'd gone to Radcliffe too but father wouldn't hear of it - he needed help at the notions counter... I'm being rude now, aren't I? OR should I say "ain't I"?

MARGO: Would you like a drink? It's right beside you...

KAREN: I was telling Margo and Lloyd about how often you'd seen the play...

MARGO: Dear Birdie. Won't you sit down, Miss Worthington?

KAREN: Harrington.

MARGO: I'm so sorry... Harrington. Won't you sit down?

KAREN: Well... there's one indoors now. I've brought her back to see you.

MARGO: You've what?

KAREN: She's just outside the door.

MARGO: The heave-ho.

MARGO: Relax, kid. It's only me and my big mouth...

KAREN: It's just that you get me so mad sometimes... of all the women in the world with nothing to complain about-

MARGO: Ain't it the truth?

KAREN: Yes, it is! You're talented, famous, wealthy - people waiting around night after night just to see you, even in the wind and rain...

MARGO: Autograph fiends! They're not people - those little beast who run in packs like coyotes-

KAREN: They're your fans, your audience-

MARGO: They're nobody's fans! They're juvenile delinquents, mental detectives, they're nobody's audience, they never see a play or a movie, even - they're never indoors long enough!

MARGO: It's the tight girdle that does it.

KAREN: I find these wisecracks increasingly less funny! 'Aged in Wood' happens to be a fine and distinguished play-

KAREN: Hi. Hello, darling-

MARGO: Hi. "Well, now Mis' Channin', ah don't think you can rightly say we lost the wah, we was mo' stahved out, you might say - an' that's what ah don' unnerstand about all these plays about love-stahved Suth'n women - love is one thing we was nevah stahved for the South!"

KAREN: Have you forgotten about Eve? What she is, what she's done?

LLOYD: Old wives' tales, born of envy and jealousy! And a phobia against truth!

KAREN: Then tell me this isn't true! That your concern for your play and career is one thing - and that poor frightened hysterical girl another - and that your concern for her has nothing to do with either your play or your career!

LLOYD: I didn't think you would! It seems to me, Karen, that for some tine, now, you've been developing a deep unconcern for the feeling of human being in general-

KAREN: I'm a human being, I've got some!

LLOYD: - and for my feelings in particular! For my play, my career - and now for a frightened, hysterical girl on the eve of her first night in the Theater!

LLOYD: Who is it? What's it all about?

KAREN: Did Miss Harrington tell you to call Mr. Richards?

LLOYD: What's so funny?

KAREN: Nothing...

LLOYD: You mean - all this time - she'd done nothing but apologize? What'd you say?

KAREN: Not much.

LLOYD: - well? What happened?

KAREN: Nothing much. She apologized.

LLOYD: After all, maybe she just wants to apologize...

KAREN: I have no possible interest in anything she'd have to say.

LLOYD: Three days, that's for the bourgeois - I see a midnight elopement, waking up a village person...

KAREN: What are you going to wear?

LLOYD: Well of all-

KAREN: Margo!

LLOYD: Darling, I didn't promise Eve anything. Just said I thought she'd be fine for the part, but there were some practical difficulties...

KAREN: Such as?

LLOYD: You - for one. I told her you were set on Margo playing the part - and I certainly wouldn't make a change without your approval.

LLOYD: Margo - and Bill - want us to meet them at the Cub Room tonight, after theater. For a bottle of wine.

KAREN: Margo in the Cub Room. I couldn't be more surprised if she'd said Grant's Tomb.

LLOYD: I'm glad Bill's back.

KAREN: They'd die without each other.

LLOYD: All this fuss and hysteria because an impulsive kid got carried away by excitement and the conniving of a professional manure slinger named deWitt! She apologized, didn't she?

KAREN: On her knees, I have no doubt! Very touching, very Academy-of-Dramatic Arts!

LLOYD: That bitter cynicism of yours is something you've acquired since you left Radcliffe!

KAREN: The cynicism you refer to, I acquired the day I discovered I was different from little boys!

KAREN: Lloyd Richards, you are not to consider giving that contemptible little worm the part of "Cora."

LLOYD: Now just a minute-

KAREN: Margo Channing has not been exactly a compromise all these years, half the playwrights in the world would give their shirts for that particular compromise!

LLOYD: Now just a minute!

KAREN: It strikes me that Eve's disloyalty and ingratitude must be contagious!

LLOYD: Eve did mention the play, you know. But just in passing - she's never ask to play a part like "Cora," she'd never have the nerve...

KAREN: Eve would ask Abbott to give her Costello.

LLOYD: No, I got the idea myself - while she was talking to me...

KAREN: With gestures, of course.

LLOYD: For once, to write something and have it realized completely. For once, not to compromise-

LLOYD: You know, I've been going over our financial condition - if you'll pardon the expression...

KAREN: That's quite a change of subject.

LLOYD: What with taxes coming up - and since I'm a playwright and not an oil well operator - well, I've been thinking...

KAREN: I'm trying hard to follow you.

LLOYD: If - instead of waiting until next season to do 'Footsteps on the Ceiling', which is in pretty good shape - and if Margo can be talked into going on tour with 'Aged in Wood' - we could put 'Footsteps...' into production right away...

KAREN: I'm beginning to catch up.

LLOYD: If we could cast it properly, that is...

KAREN: Maybe get some younger actress for the part? Someone who'd look the part as well as play it?

LLOYD: You've got to admit it would be a novelty.

KAREN: Now you're quoting Addison. Or Eve.

LLOYD: - it's Addison, from start to finish, it drips with his brand of venom... taking advantage of a kid like that, twisting her words, making her say what he wanted her to say-

KAREN: Where'd you get all that information?

LLOYD: Eve.

KAREN: Eve?

LLOYD: She's been to see me, as a matter of fact she left just before you came in - you just missed her...

KAREN: That was a pity...

LLOYD: She wanted to explain about her interview, wanted to apologize to someone - and didn't dare face Margo...

KAREN: I wonder why.

KAREN: You'll break your neck on that ice.

LLOYD: What a way to die - trying to get an actress to the theater in time. Tell Max I want to be buried with royalties...

KAREN: Don't joke about such things.

LLOYD: But it can't be! We can't be out of gas! I filled it myself yesterday! Wasn't it full when you drove to Brewster this morning?

KAREN: I guess I didn't look. You know I don't pay attention to those things...

LLOYD: Incredible.

KAREN: Lloyd, be careful...

LLOYD: Just a little skid, that's all. This road's like glass.

KAREN: What time is it?

LLOYD: When you asked a minute ago it was five-forty-two. It is now five forty-three. When you ask a minute from no, it will be-

KAREN: I just don't want Margo to miss her train. As it is, she'll barely make the theater...

LLOYD: Five-fifty-five. We'll be at the station in plenty of time...

KAREN: It's going to be a cozy weekend.

LLOYD: What is?

KAREN: We're driving out to the country tomorrow night. Just the four of us. Bill, Margo, you and I...

LLOYD: Well. We've spent weekends before with nobody talking... ... just be sure to lock up all blunt instruments and throwable objects...

KAREN: Lloyd, what happened...?

LLOYD: Up to here! That's where I've got it - up to here! Of all the star ridden, presumptuous, hysterical-

KAREN: Margo, again...

LLOYD: And again and again! Two hours late for the audition, to begin with-

KAREN: That's on time for Margo.

LLOYD: Then a childish, heavy-handed routine about not knowing Eve was her understudy-

KAREN: It's just possible she didn't...

LLOYD: Of course she knew! For one thing, Addison told her how superbly Eve had read the part-! Karen, let me tell you about Eve. She's got everything - a born actress. Sensitive, understanding, young, exciting, vibrant-

KAREN: - don't run out of adjectives, dear.

LLOYD: - everything a playwright first thinks of wanting to write about... until his play becomes a vehicle for Miss Channing...

KAREN: Margo hasn't done badly by it.

LLOYD: Margo. Margo's great. She knows it. That's the trouble. She can play Peck's Bad Boy all she wants, and who's to stop her? Who's to give her that boot in the rear she needs and deserves?

LLOYD: Coming?

KAREN: In a minute...

LLOYD: Now let's not get into a big hassle-

KAREN: It's about time we did! It's about time Margo realized that what's attractive on stage need not necessarily be attractive off.

KAREN: You can't put her out, I promised... Margo, you've got to see her, she worships you, it's like something out of a book-

LLOYD: That book is out of print, Karen, those days are gone. Fans no longer pull the carriage through the streets - they tear off clothes and steal wrist watches...

KAREN: If you'd only see her, you're her whole life - you must have spotted her by now, she's always there...

LLOYD: - 'at's my loyal little woman.

KAREN: The critics thought so, the audiences certainly think so - packed houses, tickets for months in advance - I can't see that either of Lloyd's last two plays have hurt you any!

LLOYD: Easy, now...

LLOYD: How was the concert?

KAREN: Loud.

MARGO: Now wait a minute, you're always so touchy about his plays, it isn't the part - it's a great part. And a fine play. But not for me anymore - not a foursquare, upright, downright, forthright married lady.

LLOYD: What's your being married got to do with it?

MARGO: It means I've finally got a life to live! I don't have to play parts I'm too old for - just because I've got nothing to do with my nights! I know you've made plans. I'll make it up to you, believe me. I'll tour a year with this one, anything - only you do understand - don't you, Lloyd?

LLOYD: That depends.

MARGO: I mean really, deeply angry...

LLOYD: I don't think I could be.

MARGO: Well. I don't want to play "Cora."

MARGO: ... and Bill. Especially Bill. Eve did that, too.

LLOYD: You know, she probably means well, after all...

MARGO: She is a louse.

LLOYD: Very discreet. A note right out in the open like that. Next time tell your lover to blow smoke rings - or tap a glass...

MARGO: Lloyd, I want you to be big about this... the world is full of love tonight, no woman is safe...

MARGO: Yes, sir.

LLOYD: City Hall, that's for prize fighters, and reporters - I see a cathedral, a bishop, banks of flowers...

LLOYD: It's been quite a night. I understand that your understudy - Miss Harrington - has given her notice.

MARGO: Too bad.

MARGO: How fortunate that I have an understudy so ready, so willing and so able to go on.

LLOYD: The audience will want its money refunded, believe me.

MARGO: Thank you, Lloyd. Godspeed.

MARGO: Karen and I just don't want an accident-

LLOYD: I have no intention of having an accident!

MARGO: It's not important whether you do. We are wearing long underwear.

LLOYD: I shall never understand the weird process by which a body with a voice suddenly fancies itself a mind! Just when exactly does an actress decide they're her words she's saying and her thoughts she's expressing?

MARGO: Usually at the point when she's got to rewrite and rethink them to keep the audience from leaving the theater!

LLOYD: It's about time the piano realized it has not written the concerto!

LLOYD: You've been talking to that venomous fishwife, Addison deWitt-

MARGO: - in this case, apparently, as trustworthy as the World Almanac!

LLOYD: You knew when you came in that the audition was over, that Eve was your understudy! Playing that childish game of cat and mouse...

MARGO: Not mouse, never mouse! If anything - rat!

LLOYD: You have a genius for making barroom brawl out of a perfectly innocent misunderstanding at most!

MARGO: Perfectly innocent! Man have been hanged for less! I'm lied to, attacked behind my back, accused of reading your silly dialogue inaccurately - as if it were Holy Gospel!

LLOYD: I never said it was!

MARGO: Then you listened as if someone else had written you play - whom did you have in mind? Sherwood? Arthur Miller? Beaumont and Fletcher?

MARGO: I'm sure you underestimate yourself, Eve. You always do. You were about to tell me about Eve...

LLOYD: You'd have been proud of her.

MARGO: I'm sure.

LLOYD: She was a revelation...

MARGO: To you, too?

LLOYD: What do you mean?

MARGO: I mean, among other things, that it must have been a revelation to have your twenty-four-year-old character played by twenty-four-year-old actress...

LLOYD: That's beside the point.

MARGO: It's right to the point. Also that it must have sounded so new and fresh to you - so exciting to have the lines read as you wrote them!

LLOYD: She's your understudy.

MARGO: Eve? Eve, my understudy? But I had no idea...

LLOYD: I thought you knew... She was put on over a week ago-

MARGO: It seems almost inconceivable that I haven't seen her backstage, but with so many people loitering around... well, well. So Eve is not working for Max after all- - Max you sly puss.

MARGO: How's the new one coming?

LLOYD: The play? All right, I guess...

MARGO: "Cora." She's - still a girl of twenty?

LLOYD: Twentyish. It isn't important.

MARGO: Don't you think it's about time it became important?

LLOYD: How do you mean?

MARGO: Don't be evasive.

LLOYD: Margo, you haven't got any age.

MARGO: Miss Channing is ageless. Spoken like a press agent.

LLOYD: I know what I'm talking about, after all they're my plays...

MARGO: Spoken like an author. Lloyd, I'm not twentyish. I am not thirtyish. Three months ago, I was forty years old. Forty. Four oh. That slipped out, I hadn't quite made up my mind to admit it. Now I feel as if I'd suddenly taken all my clothes off...

LLOYD: Week after week, to thousands of people, you're as young as you want...

MARGO: ... as young as they want, you mean. And I'm not interested in whether thousands of people think I'm six or six hundred-

LLOYD: Just one person. Isn't that so? You know what this is all about, don't you? It has very little to do with whether you should play "Cora" - it has everything to do with the fact that you've had another fight with Bill.

MARGO: You disapprove of me when I'm like this, don't you?

LLOYD: Not exactly. Sometimes, though, I wish I understood you better.

MARGO: When you do, let me in on it.

LLOYD: I will.

MARGO: Who's left out there?

LLOYD: Too many. And you've got a new guest. A movie star from Hollywood.

MARGO: Shucks. And my autograph book is at the cleaners.

LLOYD: There you are, both of you. Max, Karen has decided it's time to go.

MARGO: Where is she?

LLOYD: Up in the room.

LLOYD: The general atmosphere is very Macbethish. What has or is about to happen?

MARGO: What is he talking about?

LLOYD: I like that girl. That quality of quiet graciousness...

MARGO: ... Among so many quiet qualities.

LLOYD: How about calling it a night?

MARGO: And you pose as a playwright. A situation pregnant with possibilities - and all you can think of is everybody to go to sleep...

MARGO: Would you, really? How sweet-

LLOYD: I doubt very much that you'd like her in 'The Hairy Ape'.

MARGO: Honey chili had a point. You know, I can remember plays about women - even from the South - where it never even occurred to them whether they wanted to marry their fathers more than their brothers...

LLOYD: That was way back...

MARGO: Within your time, buster. Lloyd, honey, be a playwright with guts. Write me one about a nice, normal woman who shoots her husband.

MARGO: Hello..

OPERATOR'S VOICE: We are ready with your call to Beverly Hills...

MARGO: Call, what call?

OPERATOR'S VOICE: It this Templeton 89970? Miss Margo Channing?

MARGO: That's right, but I don't understand-

OPERATOR'S VOICE: We are ready with the call you placed for 12 midnight, California time, to Mr. William Sampson in Beverly Hills...

MARGO: I placed...?

OPERATOR'S VOICE: Go ahead, please...

MARGO: "Liebestraum."

PIANIST: I just played it.

MARGO: Play it again.

PIANIST: But that was the fourth straight time.

MARGO: Then this will be five. I suppose you think I'm too drunk to count.

PIANIST: No. You're just crazy about "Liebestraum."

MARGO: "Liebestraum."

PIANIST: Look, Miss Channing... it's kind of depressing. If you don't mind my saying so, everybody's kind of dying on the vine...

MARGO: My dear Horowitz. In the first place, I'm paying you union scale. Second, it's my piano. Third, if everybody doesn't like kind of dying on the vine, they can get off the vine and go home. "Liebestraum."

MAX: This is for lawyers to talk about, this concerns a run-of-the-play contract, and this you can't rewrite or ad lib!

MARGO: Are you threatening me with legal action, Mr. Fabian?

MAX: Are you breaking the contract?

MARGO: Answer my question!

MAX: Who am I to threaten? I'm a dying man.

MARGO: I didn't hear you.

MAX: I said I'm a dying man!

MARGO: Not until the last drugstore has sold its last pill!

MARGO: You get quick action, don't you?

MAX: Margo, I wouldn't think of taking that girl away from you...

MARGO: You said yourself my inventory was in good shape - all of my merchandise put away. To keep her here with nothing to do - I'd be standing in her way... and you need her, Max.

MAX: But what could she do?

MARGO: She'd be a great help - read scripts, interview people you have to see, get rid of the ones you don't have to... you'd be a man of leisure-

MAX: Well...

MARGO: Think of your health, Max - more time to relax out in the fresh air at a race track...

MAX: I don't know if this would be a wise move...

MARGO: Promise.

MAX: I promise.

MARGO: That's my Max.

MARGO: Well, if she can act, she might not be bad. She looks like she might burn down a plantation...

MAX: I feel right now like there's one burning in me.

MARGO: When's the audition?

MAX: A couple of weeks.

MARGO: I tell you what. Why don't I read with her?

MAX: Would you?

MARGO: Anything to help you out, Max.

MAX: This is real cooperation. I appreciate it.

MARGO: Not at all. And you could do me a big favor, if you would-

MAX: All you got to do is name it.

MARGO: Give Eve Harrington job in you office.

MARGO: Here you are, Maxie dear. One good burp and you'll be rid of that Miss Caswell...

MAX: The situation I'm in ain't the kind you can belch your way out. I made a promise...

MARGO: Miss Caswell? What?

MAX: An audition for the part we're replacing. What's-her-name, your sister...

MAX: Let the rest of the world beat their brains out for a buck. It's friends that count. And I got friends.

MARGO: I love you, Max. I really mean it. I love you. Come to the pantry.

MAX: Margo. You by any chance got bicarbonate of soda in the house?

MARGO: Poor Max. Heartburn? It's that Miss Caswell. I don't know why she doesn't give Addison heartburn.

MARGO: Supposed you dropped dead. What about your inventory?

MAX: I ain't gonna die. Not with a hit.

MARGO: Make it Bergdorf Goodman... and now everything is on its proper shelf, eh, Max? Done up in little ribbons. I could die right now and nobody'd be confused. How about you, Max?

MAX: How about me what?