A Play in One Act
(A salon aboard RMS Titanic. Well-dressed swells sip sherry and converse, led by ANTHONY, a fifty-ish aristo. Suddenly the entire room is JOLTED. Drinks spill, tables shudder, passengers are almost most discomfited. DEREK, a young man, enters in a panic.)
DEREK: Dreadful news! We’ve collided with an iceberg!
ANTHONY: An “iceberg”? Dear boy, I hardly think so. There are no icebergs in this stretch of the Atlantic.
DEREK: But the First Mate told me so himself! He’s an expert!
ANTHONY: Don’t you mean, a “soi-disant” expert? He only said that so you’ll give him a handsome tip in exchange for the information. I wager he’ll continue to spread such nonsense for additional gratuities from anyone foolish enough to believe him.
DEREK: Are you mad? The ship is sinking!
ANTHONY: Oh come. This ship is unsinkable and has never sunk before.
DEREK: Just because some catastrophe hasn’t happened before, doesn’t mean it can’t happen now.
ANTHONY: But I invite you to look at us. Do we appear to be sinking?
DEREK: We will soon enough! He said we have about two hours. Water is flooding into the lower decks!
ANTHONY: And you find this a cause for alarm? Might I remind you that the Atlantic Ocean, upon which we currently float, comprises a great deal of water? It’s hardly surprising that some find its way aboard.
DEREK: You fool! We’ll all drown!
ANTHONY: In what? Oh, you mean, in the water? And yet water is essential for human life. Do you see the paradox here?
DEREK: For God’s sake, you must all evacuate to the life boats—if not for your own sake, then for the sake of the children on board, and future generations.
ANTHONY: What? And rob those children of the priceless experience of sailing on this magnificent vessel? How grossly unfair to them. What a lamentable diminution of their pleasure.
DEREK: It won’t be so pleasurable if they all die!
ANTHONY: No one is going to die. Well, I should say, everyone, in due time, is going to die, yes. But not on this voyage. Look, young man, if you study history you will see that bad things happen on all transatlantic crossings. They come, they go, and somehow everything manages to emerge satisfactory in the end.
DEREK: This is different! Ninety-five percent of the crew believe we are in danger of sinking. They do this sort of thing for a living. They’ve made careers of it!
ANTHONY: I daresay—and every one of them says that because all the others say that. Heaven forbid any of them defy consensus and imperil those careers. Meanwhile, give me the chaps among the courageous five percent, who are unafraid to speak the simple truth and go against the herd.
DEREK: But…but…you felt that jolt just now. What do you suppose it was?
ANTHONY: We struck something—a log, a piece of flotsam, perhaps a large sea mammal. Such occurrences are part and parcel of the overall experience of steaming across an ocean.
(The salon experiences a sudden JOLT.)
ANTHONY}
DEREK } There! You see?
(The ARISTOCRATS share a hearty laugh and toast Anthony with their glasses.)
DEREK: So you would blind yourself to objective fact rather than admit that things are other than what you would prefer. That is appalling. It is an abdication of your responsibilities as gentlemen, as participants in a civilization, and as members of a community.
ANTHONY (struck by a though): Do you know, I have half a mind to blame the Chinese for this “iceberg” rumor. You’ve seen them, scuttling about on the lower decks. Yes, they make damn good scullery crew. But who’s to say they’ve not concocted this mad scenario as a ploy to weaken us–not only those of us aboard ship, but Great Britain itself?
DEREK: What utter rot! They, too, will perish!
ANTHONY: Or so they would have you think…
DEREK: So you are intransigent in your denial—regardless of repeated evidence, the near-unanimous opinions of experts, and the simple wisdom of defaulting toward caution rather than knee-jerk optimism. Very well. I can only add that when you are proved wrong, your descendants—should you have any—will curse your pigheadedness.
ANTHONY: As well they might! But what care we? We’ll be dead, and beyond the reach of their misery and censure!
(HE leads THE ARISTOCRATS in a volley of laughter as the room JOLTS once again. DEREK hastily exits.)
Curtain
