The Little Garden of Assisi by John Bull

Author:John Bull
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Comedy, play, teleplay, farce, visual comedy, pets cemetery, Russia, Stalin, Kremlin, wordplay
ISBN: 9781911105183
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2016
Published: 2016-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

Scene Six

INT - The Long Room at the Kremlin

Music: Song of the Volga Boatmen

MOLOTOV enters the long room. MALENKOV, Timoshenko and Voroshilov are sitting around the table drinking vodka.

(Music ends)

Molotov: (slurring) The Biritsh have gone?

Malenkov: Yes, Comrade Molotov. They didn’t drink enough vodka. So we are finishing it off. Cheers!

Voroshilov: How did you find Comrade Stalin?

(Long pause as the others wait expectantly)

Molotov: I found him thoughtful, Comrades. Pour me some of that vodka.

Voroshilov: (slyly) Have you had some kind of shock?

Malenkov : Sit down, Molotov. Here, pour me another. I see in your face that your interview with Comrade Stalin was much the same as mine. Of course, he has a lot to worry about ...

Molotov: We’d better put our cards on the table. No point in keeping up appearances any longer. Not in here, anyway. Timoshenko, pour yourself a stiff drink. And a stiffer one for me.

Timoshenko: pouring the drinks) What’s going on?

Molotov: To be frank Comrade Stalin - he seems to have lost his nerve. There, it’s out at last.

(Stunned silence in which everyone expects the ceiling to fall on MOLOTOV)

Timoshenko: So! You think I’m stupid! This is some kind of trick ...

Molotov: If it was a trick, Comrade - if he hadn’t lost his nerve would any of us dare say so? Will you two agree with me, for God’s sake?

Voroshilov: It is true.

Malenkov : There’s no point in hiding it. We are all Stalin’s men. Without Stalin we are lost.

Voroshilov: Without Stalin, Russia is lost.

Molotov: That may be true. Certainly he thinks the game is up.

Voroshilov: He refuses the Army a chance to regroup. He thinks they won’t fight for him.

Malenkov: He believes the people will turn on him, will embrace the Germans as their liberators.

Molotov: He thinks the Americans and the British will join Hitler and fall on our necks. He even told me ... told me - invited me to call in Beria and have him arrested!

Malenkov: What?

Molotov: It’s true. Yesterday, when I saw him, he said first that if he called in Beria, his watchdog, to have me arrested, he doubted if he would be obeyed. He said that if any of us were to take over, that would be it. Timoshenko, he said, had been running the war for a week ... he is the real power in Russia now.

Timoshenko: Jesus! We’re in the shit good and proper.

Molotov: In the immortal words of Comrade Lenin: ‘What is to be done?’

Timoshenko: Give me another vodka.

Voroshilov: Me too.

Malenkov: Getting pissed isn’t going to help.

Molotov: You have an alternative suggestion?

(No-one replies. Malenkov slowly puts his glass forward for a drink.)

Voroshilov : How long has this been going on?

Timoshenko: Since the first day of the war. He has done nothing. He hasn’t left the dacha.

Malenkov: He kept Beria there to keep us away.

Molotov: And he refused to let Beria come to talk to us. He said the Soviet state was a house of cards held together by the NKVD. One push and it would be no more.

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