A Gray Play Book by Alasdair Gray sampler

Book of Jonah. Only three chapters long, this book contains
two miracles, one the most famous in the Bible because,
after the creation of the world, it is the most unlikely. And
unlike the Deluge, destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Egyptian plagues and trumpets blowing down the walls
of Jericho, both miracles save a life instead of killing
thousands. The true hero of Jonah is a reforming God
using his power to persuade enemies, instead of
slaughtering them. Jonah had inspired several of my
pictures and the first play I think you may enjoy.
Directing it was good preparation for later productions
of my plays. The puppeteers who carved and manipulated
the little wooden actors listened carefully to my directions,
seemed to accept them then ignored or forgot them. Scene
2 has Jonah in a cowardly state meeting the Captain and
Customs Officer, so I wanted his sense of inferiority made
evident by having the puppets playing them an inch or
two taller. In scene 4 he is confident enough to dominate
the rulers of Nineveh, so I wanted the four of them to be
an inch or two shorter. Nearly all the characters are types
so I suggested historical individuals whose faces could be
prototypes – the Commander of the Armed Forces, for
instance, should resemble Bismark. When we came to
rehearse the play I saw that the Commander of the Armed
Forces had an elfin face, tip-tilted nose and merry smile.
When I complained to Miss Hamilton she explained that
the carvers were artists who had to be allowed to express
themselves. However, by giving the Commander’s head
to the Sentry and swapping around some others, the
speeches finally seemed spoken by faces that could utter
them.
I got the voices completely right by taping them on
one of the early reel-to-reel recorders, a heavy Grundig
machine housed in a big squat portable case and lent by a
painting teacher. I chose the speakers from student friends
with appropriate voices. Jonah was not Jewish but Mrs
Jonah was. The Captain was from the main sea port of
Scotland’s Western Isles. The Emperor of Nineveh had
seemed pompous and insecure when I met him in our
first year at Art School, but was now relaxed and confident,
having started an art school choir which he conducted
very well. Alas, a disease killed him after his happy
marriage a few years later. The voices of the Home
Secretary and God belonged to very close friends who
died in 2005 and 2007. To interest carvers, manipulators
and vocalists who still live, and perhaps the children or
grandchildren of those who do not, see adjacent the
programme of the one or two performances, presented
in December 1956 before an audience containing students
visiting us from Edinburgh College of Art.
At that time Britain’s government was still encumbered
with the large remains of an empire in the Caribbean,
parts of Africa, Malaysia, Cyprus and Gibraltar. The
Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had said
“a wind of change” was blowing that would give all
countries their own governments, but Britain was still
fighting wars of occupation that, until 1961, enforced two
years of compulsory military service on all healthy young
males who did not conscientiously object. Being a Socialist
who read his father’s New Statesman and also a disciple of
William Blake I thought all empires were criminal and no
nation was right to invade others, another reason for the
Book of Jonah providing a congenial theme
as it showed God’s politics and
my own in harmony.
JONAH
A PUPPET PLAY IN FIVE SCENES
1956
CAST
JONAH, A MINOR PROPHET every scene
MRS JONAH scenes 1 and 5
THE VOICE OF GOD scenes 1, 3, 5
SHIP’S CAPTAIN )
CUSTOMS OFFICER ) scene 2
SHIP’S MATE )
THE VOICE OF A BIG FISH scene 3
A SENTRY )
GENERAL COMMANDING ASSYRIAN ARMY )
CHANCELLOR OF EXCHEQUER ) scene 4
KING OF NINEVEH )
CHIEF CONSTABLE )
AN ELDERLY GOATHERD scene 5
15
A PUPPET
PLAY