In the Clap Shack

A Play

William Styron

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN:
  9781453203026
• Subtopic: American Drama

Set in a military hospital during WWII, a darkly humorous play by the National Book Award–winning and New York Times– bestselling author of Sophie's Choice .

In the summer of 1943, a young Marine named Wally Magruder arrives at a Navy hospital in the American South, stricken with what doctors diagnose as a severe case of syphilis. Trapped in the stifling confines of the urology ward, Magruder and his fellow patients rebel against the authoritarian Dr. Glanz, a physician who delights in the power that sickness gives him. But as they seek to reclaim their identities against dehumanization, the ward becomes a hell more real than any of them could have imagined.

Inspired by Styron's own experience, In the Clap Shack is a searing indictment of military brutalization and a brilliant defense of individualism and personal freedom from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Confessions of Nat Turner.

This ebook features new manuscripts, rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the William Styron archives at Duke University.

Act One

SCENE 1

The time is the summer of 1943. The place is the Urological Ward of the United States Naval Hospital at a large Marine Corps base in the South. The entire action of the play takes place on this ward, which differs little in appearance from hospital wards throughout the world. Two rows of about nine beds each, their feet facing each other upon a central aisle, dominate the scene. The beds are staggered, so that the audience obtains a view of each bed and its patient. At extreme stage left is the office of the Chief Urologist, DR.GLANZ, who rules the ward from this cluttered room filled with urological instruments and medical books. To the right of this office, outside the door and at the end of the ward proper, are the chair and desk occupied by Pharmacist’s Mate First-Class LINEWEAVER, GLANZ’s satrap and the chief male nurse of the ward.

Overture: “There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere.“

As the lights go up on the curtainless stage, it is a few moments before 6:30 a.m., the hour for reveille, and the occupants of the ward are still asleep. Some stir restlessly in their beds. Others snore. One voice is heard to mumble at intervals a small anguished “Pearl! Pearl!” as if in semidelirium. At his desk, LINEWEAVER, an effeminate, thin, angular sailor in summer whites, sits making out reports with a pencil. Suddenly he looks at his watch and rises, walking slowly down the aisle as he rouses the men. His air is casual, jaunty; the effeminacy should be quite evident but not overemphasized or caricatured.

LINEWEAVER (His voice an amiable singsong) All right, up and at ‘em! Rise and shine, you gyrenes! Drop your cocks and grab your socks! VD patients: short-arm inspection in precisely ten minutes!

(There are groans from the patients as they rouse themselves. Some sit on the edge of their beds and drowsily regard their feet. Others only prop themselves up against their pillows. One or two manage to stand and stretch, clad like the others in green Marine Corps issue underwear. Only a drowsing Negro—obviously quite sick—and the marine who was heard to mutter “Pearl! Pearl!” remain virtually motionless under their sheets, oblivious to LINEWEAVER’s verbal assault. One marine, however, CORPORAL STANCIK, rolls over as if to remain resolutely asleep and mumbles his resentment to LINEWEAVER)

STANCIK (His accent is urban, working-class Northeast) Up yours, Lineweaver, you creep.

LINEWEAVER (Good-humoredly) On your feet, Stancik. Dr. Glanz is going to take a look at your tool.

STANCIK Just let me sleep, you faggot.

LINEWEAVER (Raps the bed with his hand) I’m not bullshittin’ you this morning, Stancik. Dr. Glanz is going to have the Old Man with him. Captain Budwinkle. And you guys have got to look very superior.

(STANCIK stirs awake as DADARIO, a patient standing nearby flexing his muscles and yawning, responds with drowsy sarcasm)

DADARIO How can a dozen guys look superior at six-thirty in the morning all lined up with their peckers hanging out?

LINEWEAVER (Keeping his good humor) Just use a little imagination, Dadario. (In a semi-aside) I think you all look cute.

STANCIK (Now climbing out of bed) You would. (Yawns) Boy, did I have a dirty dream.

LINEWEAVER Like I say, Stancik, I think you’ve got an obsession. It’s dreams like that that get you into this joint in the first place.

(He pauses at the bedside of the patient who had been calling “Pearl! Pearl!” This is a marine private in his mid-twenties named CHALKLEY. The sick man is now awake but is flushed and sweating, and he has the glassy, distracted look of one who is very ill and in extreme discomfort. LINEWEAVER takes his pulse and sticks a thermometer in his mouth, then marks something on the chart which is attached to the end of each bed. As he does this, the other patients are frittering the minutes away in various fashions: some leaf through magazines and comic books, a few do desultory setting-up exercises, others resume a three-handed card game, one turns on a portable radio which plays “Don’t Fence Me In.” Two patients near CHALKLEY’s bed, in the meantime, are talking about him)

DADARIO Did you hear Chalkley? Did you hear him, Schwartz? All night long he kept saying “Pearl, Pearl!” It gave me the creeps. I couldn’t sleep. Who do you guess that fucking Pearl is?

SCHWARTZ (A solemn, bespectacled Jew, perhaps a few years older than the other patients, most of whom are in their early twenties. He raises his eyes from a book) It’s his sister. She’s the closest relative he’s got. She was run down by a car—in Atlanta, I think. She’s in very bad shape. Chalkley told me about her last week, before he got so sick. Poor guy.

DADARIO They should put a guy like that off somewhere by himself, in some room, for his own good and ours. I can’t stand to hear him say “Pearl, Pearl!” all night. It gives you the creeps.

SCHWARTZ (Returns to the book) Poor guy.

STANCIK (To DADARIO) Are you an ass man or a tit man, Dadario? Me, I’m an ass man. Someday I’m goin’ to find me an ass with a pair of handles. Then I’m goin’ to really operate.

DADARIO (He is shaving himself with an electric shaver) Frankly, I’m for ass and tits, Stancik. A sense of proportion is what’s needed in the world, if you ask me.

LINEWEAVER (Pauses at the bed of the Negro, a Southern-born private named LORENZO CLARK. The Negro is awake but appears to be very feeble) How do you feel this morning, Lorenzo? All bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?

CLARK Man, I’ve had better mornin’s. Each mornin’ ’pears to be a little darker than the last. (He is speaking very slowly) How do it feel today?

LINEWEAVER (Taking his pulse) Checks out fine, Lorenzo. Steady as she goes. (There is a note of false jollity in his voice) You’ll be out of here by Labor Day, eatin’ barbecued spareribs and humpin’ those little jungle bunnies over in Port Royal like a real stud. Feel like you can down a little chow this morning?

CLARK (Haltingly) I feels pretty poorly. Guess you’d better let me just rest a bit.

LINEWEAVER Where you headin’, gyrene?

(He intercepts a very young marine who is trying politely to press past him. This is a private named WALLY MAGRUDER. He is dressed in the same kind of white hospital robe that some of the other patients have already donned. One is struck almost immediately by this boy’s bewilderment, his vulnerability, and by his wistfulness and innocence)

MAGRUDER I—I have to go to the bathroom. I mean, the head.

LINEWEAVER (Emphatically) Unh-unh! Not till I check your diagnosis. You’re a new face. Didn’t you come in last night during the other duty watch?

MAGRUDER Yeah, I came in about ten o’clock. I—

LINEWEAVER (Inspecting MAGRUDER’s chart) Ah, “Wallace Magruder, private, serial number five-four-two-three-oh-seven, age eighteen, born Danville, Virginia. Expert rifleman, graduate 417th recruit platoon. Serological tests reveal syphilis.” Syphilis! (Turns to MAGRUDER almost admiringly) As I live and breathe, a real live syphilitic! And a three plus on your Kahn and your Wassermann—almost at the top. Aren’t you the raunchy devil! An aristocrat among the votaries of Venus, heir to the malady of Casanova, De Maupassant and Baudelaire. Welcome aboard, Magruder. We haven’t had a syphilitic in here since last month. (Gestures toward the rest of the patients, a few of whose attention has been caught by the encounter) Amid all of this common, garden-variety gonorrhea your affliction stands out like poison oak. (An aside) I’m joking like crazy, but I’m crying inside. It’s really almost incurable.

DADARIO (To STANCIK) Now there is an ass and tit man. See what I mean?

LINEWEAVER Among these plain old clapped-up types you walk as a prince among commoners. But you still can’t go to the head.

MAGRUDER (With pain in his voice) Why can’t I go to the head? It’s really—

LINEWEAVER Short-arm inspection, Wally. Every morning, sharp at six-forty, a short-arm inspection by Dr. Glanz. And this morning there’ll also be Captain Budwinkle, the new hospital commandant.

MAGRUDER But I’ve always thought that a short-arm inspection was just for the clap. I mean—

(At this moment, a light goes up in the office of the Chief Urologist. Seen entering the room are DR. GLANZ, in the uniform of a lieutenant commander, and CAPTAIN BUDWINKLE. DR. GLANZ is a short, officious-looking man with graying hair and spectacles. His every gesture bespeaks obedience to duty and authority. CAPTAIN BUDWINKLE looks like a Hollywood version of a Navy captain—imperious, patrician of carriage, aloof and proud. He is decorated with medals an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• A Biography of William Styron
• Copyright Page