A Clockwork Orange

Play with Music

Anthony Burgess

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781408140987
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Anthony Burgess's stage play of his infamous cult novel and film of the same name. Alex and his vicious teenage gang revel in horrific violence, mugging and gang rape. Alex also revels in the music of Beethoven. The Gang communicates in a language which is as complicated as their actions. When a drug-fuelled night of fun ends in murder, Alex is finally busted and banged up. He is given a choice - be brainwashed into good citizenship and set free, or face a lifetime inside. Anthony Burgess's play with music, based on his own provocative 1962 novella of the same name, was first published in 1987. A Clockwork Orange was made into a film classic by Stanley Kubrick in 1971 and was dramatizes by the RSC in 1990.

Act Two

Before the scene is disclosed, we hear the Scherzo of Beethoven’s Ninth thumping away, punctuated by the cries of Alex to stop the music. As the lights come up, we see him as he was at the end of Act One, with the projector flickering and Brodsky giving a commentary.

Brodsky Here we see some very recent film – a riot in London’s East End, with the police as much responsible for the enormities enacted as the black, brown and white disaffected. Corpses in the gutter, corpses hanging from lampposts, the torn and eviscerated dying. This is the modern world. Sick, sick, mortally sick. ‘How like a god,’ said Hamlet of humankind. Better to say ‘How like a dog’. A dog, as Pavlov showed, can at least be conditioned by the control of its reflexes into behaving like a harmless machine. If mankind is to be saved, science must take over. Science must dig its way into the human brain, crushing the instinct of aggression . . .

Alex All right, all right, but leave him alone. He did no harm. He only did good. It’s a sin, it’s a sin, I tell you . . .

And then, his eyes clamped open still, he faints. Brodsky gets no response from his monitors. He calls.

Brodsky Lights! Lights! Switch off.

Lights come up. The projector ceases to project. Brodsky, Branom and the white-coated assistants crowd about Alex. He is released from the apparatus and brought round with face slapping and a glass of water. He comes to and vomits agonizedly into a bowl. Then, exhausted, he speaks again.

Alex He did no harm. Why do you punish him?

Brodsky Who?

Alex Beethoven. He gave heaven and you turn it into hell

Brodsky I don’t think I quite understand.

Branom That was Beethoven on the sound track. The Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony.

Brodsky Was it? I know nothing about music. I just find it a convenient heightener of emotion, no more.

Branom But surely you see what we’ve done. Pavlov’s dogs salivated when they saw food and heard a bell. Then they salivated when they merely heard the bell. Withdraw the images of violence while keeping the musical accompaniment – he’ll respond in the same way. Not salivating, of course – vomiting. From now on music will make him vomit. Did you foresee this?

Brodsky No, but does it matter? Music’s a discardable luxury – like marijuana or cheap sweets. It’s the quelling of the violent impulse that matters. I think he’s cured.

Branom No. We’ve given him a new disease. Music was once the way into heaven. He used the right words. Now it’s going to be hell. I think, Dr Brodsky, I want to withdraw from the experiment. I’d be happy if you’d omit my name from the reports. You’ve bitten off far far more than you can chew.

Saying which, she tears off her white coat and leaves. Brodsky looks at her leaving, doubtful, but then he smiles manually at Alex.

Brodsky You feel all right now? (Alex nods warily.) Have you noticed a small but vital change in procedure these last few days?

Alex thinks, then speaks.

Alex You’ve not been giving me those injections.

Brodsky No. There’s no need for them any more. You’ve been permanently inoculated. The distaste for violence has been programmed into your biochemistry. My forecast has proved correct. To the day, to the minute. Take him away. Inform the distinguished gentlemen – and, of course, the ah professional participants – that all is ready.

To music there is an arranging of chairs by the white-coated assistants. A dais is wheeled on. The Governor, the Minister of the Interior, the Prison Chaplain come in, as also warders and other interested officials. The audience becomes a specially convened body.

Minister Take your seats, please. No noise. Try not to cough.

He sings the following, to the music of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

With some pride Government presents

The end-result of Government’s experiments.

They said that I’m

To concentrate

On the crime

Rate.

Chorus

On the crime rate.

Minister

I’m only here to serve.

I steeled my nerve

With what results you’ll observe.

Chorus

Let us observe.

Minister

Give us the votes we deserve.

Chorus

We will vote you back in like responsive adults

When we see –

Minister

Yes?

Chorus

When we see –

Minister

Yes?

Chorus

Positive results.

The theme blazes on the orchestra as Alex walks in uncertainly. He wears his old platties of the nochy – the only clothes he brought in with him. They provoke titters.

Minister Aha. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we introduce the subject himself. Today we send him with confidence out into the world again, as decent a lad as you would meet on a May morning, inclined to the kindly word and the helpful act. What a change is here from the wretched hoodlum the State committed to unprofitable punishment some two years ago, unchanged after two years. Unchanged, do I say? Not quite. Prison taught him the false smile, the rubbed hands of hypocrisy, the fawning greased obsequious leer. Other vices it taught him too, as well as confirming him in those he had long practised before. But, ladies and gentlemen, enough of words. Actions speak louder than. Action now. Observe, all.

Alex has been led to the dais, on which a spotlight is trained. There is music appr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• A prefatory word
• Act One
• Act Two
• eCopyright