Summary
When Harry says he won’t play Thursday at Jackson’s direction, Jackson points out that if Harry really wants to talk “man to man,” he’ll have to accept that it gives him a shock—a twitch of the lip—for Jackson to address him simply as “Trewe.” He says they’re faking their roles all the time. But man-to-man could be “something else.” He says they’re only playing man-to-man right now, because really Harry just wants to get something from Jackson.
Harry admits that the play they started improvising earlier was making him sad, but later he thought maybe they could play it “straight.” Jackson asks if he means like a tragedy with one joke. Harry says more like a comedy with none. Harry says they have the same background with Jackson being a calypsonian and Harry coming from a family of music-hall performers. He laments the glory days of his youth, then suddenly asks Jackson if he is married. Jackson says he isn’t too sure. Harry says he understands because he wasn’t sure he was married when he was married. His wife has remarried, so there’s “no hearth for Crusoe to go home to.”
Harry presents Jackson with a speech he wrote for him to perform as Robinson Crusoe. Jackson starts reciting, interrupting himself to question Harry’s “f…flee,” misunderstanding that the actor is meant to hesitate and quiver while delivering the line rather than say “fuflee,” as Jackson does. Harry tells him that, if he is going to do professional theater, more discipline is required. Jackson reads the monologue, which takes seriously the idea of being lonely and missing one’s wife and child. Jackson compliments Harry’s writing, saying it is touching and sad, but something is missing: he has left out the goats.
Jackson goes on, saying that the Robinson Crusoe Harry has written is ignoring the fact that goats are all around him. Robinson Crusoe’s son could keep the goatskin hat and parasol, bragging to people that his father is so smart to have made them after getting shipwrecked. Harry says, “Only his son is dead.” Jackson says Robinson Crusoe’s son isn’t dead; Harry’s son is dead. Robinson Crusoe’s wife and child are waiting for him. Jackson says Robinson Crusoe is a practical man who knows someone is going to come and save him. Harry, angrily, says that’s “not in his character at that moment,” because there’s no way he can know. Jackson calls Harry a “fucking ass,” saying that Robinson Crusoe has faith. Harry disagrees.
Jackson picks up the paper and begins reading the overwrought, poetic monologue again. He says Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked, desperate, and hungry. He isn’t thinking about his wife and kid, he is thinking about wrestling the first goat he sees to the sand. The next thing the audience knows, Robinson Crusoe is walking up the beach with a goatskin hat and umbrella “feeling like a million dollars because he have faith!”
Harry applauds, saying that Jackson is the Christian and Harry the cannibal. Jackson points out that if he hammers sarcastically, Harry claps sarcastically. Jackson says he wants to go pee; Harry says he thinks he’ll join. Jackson says, “Monkey see, monkey do.” Harry replies, “You’re the bloody ape, mate. You people just came down from the trees.” Jackson asks him to say that again. Harry says he’s going to keep that line. He says he’ll rehearse his monologue while Jackson goes pee.
Jackson suggests it’s better they go at the same time so he isn’t thinking about Harry needing to go. Harry asks how long he needs. Jackson explains that it takes time to walk to the servants’ toilet, and then goes through the details of opening his fly, and so forth. He guesses five minutes, and says that he was once a bathroom attendant at the Hilton, so he knows most Englishmen don’t flush.
Harry tells him not to waste time going to the servants’ quarters, suggesting Jackson just use his bathroom around the corner. Jackson says he appreciates the offer, but they mustn’t rush “independence,” saying these islands were given independence too quickly and so people are pissing and wiping indiscriminately, not having recovered from the shock. He says he’ll take his usual five minutes, and maybe one day he can use Harry’s nice towels without having to feel gratitude. Harry gets angry at Jackson for “running his mouth” and concealing his bitterness with jokes. He gives him three minutes to use the toilet.
Jackson exits while shaking his head. Alone on stage, Harry picks up his monologue and pockets it. He drinks a large Scotch in one gulp, then moves the drinks tray to the side and flips the table upside down. He turns it back over onto the legs. He removes his shirt and pours melted ice water over his head. He ruffles his hair. He sees an icepick and picks it up. From off stage, Jackson’s voice repeats the line about stabbing an icepick into a man’s hand while he is playing cards. Harry drives the pick into the table, removes it, and gets under the table, the icepick at his feet.
Analysis
The themes of compromise and performance arise as Jackson addresses Harry’s tendency to react involuntarily whenever Jackson breaks the unspoken rules of etiquette for an employee or servant. A symbol of Harry’s discomfort, his lip twitches whenever Jackson addresses him without the honorific of “mister.” Jackson explains that if Harry really wants to reach a place of “man-to-man” equality, there will have to be some true compromise. Part of that compromise entails stepping out of the roles they are always “faking.”
Walcott returns to the themes of grief and isolation with Harry’s new monologue from Robinson Crusoe’s perspective. As a means of sublimating his own grief and feelings of loneliness into art, Harry ascribes to Robinson Crusoe a deep sense of sorrow as he arrives at the uninhabited island. Although Harry presents the monologue as, ostensibly, a compromise between his vision for the play and Jackson’s postcolonial critique, Jackson resumes his sarcastic stance and dismisses the heartfelt monologue as being unfaithful to the Robinson Crusoe story. The tension between the men grows as Jackson unsympathetically reminds Harry that Harry’s son is dead and his wife has left him, while the fictional Robinson Crusoe’s son and wife are waiting for him back home.
The theme of mimicry returns with the men’s argument over sarcastic clapping and having to use the toilet at the same time. In a comment that invokes racist stereotypes, Harry shows his resentment by calling Jackson a “bloody ape” and suggests that Black people “just came down from the trees.” Jackson is incensed by Harry’s invocation of the trope that African-descended people are more closely related to apes, but Harry pretends the comment was an improvisation within their exploration of the pantomime.
Walcott continues building on the themes of postcolonialism, resentment, and compromise with Harry’s and Jackson’s argument over which toilet Jackson should use. Harry offers his private bathroom because he doesn’t want Jackson to take five minutes to go all the way to the servants’ outhouse. Jackson rejects the would-be compromise on the grounds that he, like a former colony, mustn’t be granted so much freedom so suddenly; otherwise there might be confusion and disaster.
While Jackson is off stage, Walcott builds tension by showing Harry getting more intoxicated before he changes his appearance to inhabit the role of “Thursday.” The theme of mimicry arises when Harry sees an icepick and recalls Jackson’s story about the time he stabbed a man’s hand when he wouldn’t stop his racist taunts. As though trying to understand the world through Jackson’s eyes—or perhaps test whether he believes such violence is something Jackson is actually capable of—Harry stabs the icepick into the table, replicating what Jackson claimed to have done so dispassionately.
