Introduction | Essay | Script | Lessons | Resources
ACT I, SCENE TWO (Inventors)
|
CHARACTERS
- ANNOUNCER
WILLIAM GILBERT (in 1600)
MICHAEL FARADAY (in 1821)
GEORG SIMON OHM (in 1826)
ZENOBE T. GRAMME (in 1873)
THOMAS A. EDISON (in 1879)
FIRST BUSINESS MAN
SECOND BUSINESS MAN
THIRD BUSINESS MAN
FOURTH BUSINESS MAN
FIFTH BUSINESS MAN
SIXTH BUSINESS MAN
LOUDSPEAKER
FINANCIER
LOUDSPEAKER: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Power! (Music interlude) All right, Jack; take it!
(Front spot picks up ANNOUNCER, left, in front of curtain.)
ANNOUNCER: Well, now that you've got some idea of what power is, and how much we depend on it, let's go into the question of who started it. Did it just happen all at once, or is it the result of somebody starting something, discovering something, inventing something, to which somebody else added something, and somebody else perfected it a little more, and so on down the line until we came to power as it is known today?
(Spot on ANNOUNCER goes out. Curtain opens. The stage is set with three cut-out desks, one upstage right, one downstage center, and the other upstage left.)
|
LOUDSPEAKER: 1600. William Gilbert publishes the first work on electric and magnetic phenomena, and the philosophy of experimentation. [Hart, Ivor B., Makers of Science.]
(Lights come up on desk, right. GILBERT enters with a book in his hand, crosses to desk where FARADAY stands. On desk is a dynamo. Behind them is projected a representation of an early electrical experiment.)
GILBERT: Nothing is true, nothing lives, until it has been proved. We must make sure before we give it to humanity. (Hands book to FARADAY, who places it on dynamo. The projection dissolves into that of a dynamo.)
LOUDSPEAKER: 1821. Michael Faraday invents the first instrument to generate electricity — the dynamo. [Building America, Vol. I, No. 6, p. 8.]
(Light comes up desk, center, and goes out desk, right. FARADAY picks up dynamo and book and crosses to desk, center, where OHM stands.)
FARADAY: If it will help humanity, it is good.
(The projection dissolves into that of another early electrical experiment.)
LOUDSPEAKER: 1826. Georg Simon Ohm determines the law governing the flow of current. [Hart, Ivor B., Makers of Science, p. 240.]
(OHM takes dynamo from FARADAY.)
OHM: Now we can control this force to the great gain of the world.
(Lights go up desk, left, and out desk, center.)
LOUDSPEAKER: 1873. Zenobe T. Gramme attaches the dynamo to a motor and it works. [Building America, Vol. I, No. 6, p. 9.]
(OHM crosses to desk left where GRAMME stands. The projection dissolves into a picture of an early type of motor.)
GRAMME: Now we can make it the slave of humanity.
(EDISON enters, left, holding an electric bulb [old-fashioned type] in his hand.)
LOUDSPEAKER: 1879. Thomas A. Edison invents the first electric light. [Edison at Menlo Park, published by General Electric Co.]
(EDISON attaches bulb to socket. Crosses down left. Rear curtains close and the projection fades out. Lights come up, down left, as they dim out, up left.)
|
EDISON: The happiness of man! I know of no greater service to render during the short time we live! [Miller, F. T., Thomas Edison, 1931.]
(Enter six BUSINESS MEN excitedly, left and right. They surround EDISON. Their speeches are excited, almost incoherent, but out of the jumble and ad libbing are heard:)
FIRST MAN: How much does it cost to run?
SECOND MAN: Let me put you into business!
THIRD MAN: Sell me the rights for New York!
FOURTH MAN: Sell me the rights for New Jersey!
FIRST MAN: Sell me the rights for Brooklyn!
FIFTH MAN: Sell me the rights for Harlem!
SIXTH MAN: Sell me the rights for Delaware! (Out of the welter of ad libbing are heard the words "money!" "profits," "investment," "corporations," "thousands, millions, billions!" as they try to wrest the bulb from his hands. EDISON stands dazed.)
LOUDSPEAKER: Just a moment, gentlemen! Aren't you being a bit foolish? This invention is just a drop in the bucket. How much can you make on a little bulb? But the power to make it work! That's different.
|
(The six who have frozen suddenly come to life. They rush upstage to the desks. Lights come up on all three desks. Each places a small sign on his desk, reading from left to right, "United States Electric Company," "American Electric Company," "National Lighting Corporation," "The International Electric & Fuel Corporation," and last, the "Hoboken Electric Company." Each picks up a telephone from under the desk. During the above:)
LOUDSPEAKER: The New York Stock Exchange is in a panic. Gas stocks drop and keep on dropping. Shares in the Edison Electric Company skyrocket from one to five hundred dollars! [Edison at Menlo Park, published by General Electric Co.]
(Rear curtains open and a panic stock exchange scene is projected.)
FIRST MAN (into telephone): Get me the mayor's office, quick. (Punctuating this, the other men speak into telephones: "the mayor's office, get me the mayor," etc., etc.)
LOUDSPEAKER: A record is reached when three shares are sold for six thousand dollars, resold in a few minutes for ten thousand dollars, and resold again the same day, for fifteen thousand dollars.
FIRST MAN (into telephone): Hello, Mr. Mayor? I can supply electricity to light your streets at the rate of seventy cents per light per night! [New York Times, May 16, 1887.]
SECOND MAN (into telephone): I can light every lamp in New York for fifty-eight cents a night. [Ibid.]
THIRD MAN: Fifty cents a night.
FOURTH MAN(into telephone): Forty-two and one-half cents per night! [Ibid.]
FIFTH MAN: Thirty cents a night! [Ibid.]
SIXTH MAN: Twenty cents! Twenty cents, I said! [Ibid.]
TOGETHER: Seventy cents! Fifty-eight cents! Forty-two and one-half cents! Thirty, thirty, twenty, d'you hear!
|
(Enter FINANCIER, who comes up center.)
FINANCIER: Come, come, gentlemen, why all this bickering? Competition in this business is ruinous — to you and to the consumer. By sharing the same territory you're duplicating costs and cutting consumption. In your industry, the more electricity sold, the less the cost — to you and to the consumer — Now why don't you let me consolidate your holdings? Let me consolidate them into one big corporation, The Universal Electric Lighting and Fuel Corporation of Hoboken, New Jersey! [Note: All names of lighting companies in the foregoing scene, except that of the Edison Electric Company, are fictional and so intended.] (All business men surround him downstage, center, and hold positions until:
Blackout
Introduction | Essay | Script | Lessons | Resources