Five Legends of British Theater at the Social Security Office;
November 8
Playwrights Tom Stoppard and David Hare, theater critic Michael Billington,octogenarian actor and director Frith Banbury, and esteemed Shakespearean
actress Janet Suzman present their passports to me like well-heeled tourists.
Our lawmakers in their mission to reduce the national deficit have ruled that
all non-citizens who are paid wages of any sort must have a social security
number so that these wages may be counted and, if possible, taxed. The British
have arrived the night before to fulfill their role as speakers at the Ransom
Center’s symposium on the last 40 years of British theater. It is mid-morning
and they are perky, the jet lag working in my favor. Before we head downtown,
however, we must say good-bye to the sixth member of our band, Timberlake
Wertenbaker, a younger playwright who the next day will win hundreds of
admirers for her exposure of the absence of women working in theater. Through
some stroke of luck, she already has a social security card. She remains at the
Four Seasons, sunning and buying from the gift shop a plush, stuffed longhorn
toy for her daughter.
When the conference organizers first realized that the speakers would need to
visit the Social Security Office en masse, we had discussed offering
cocktails in the queue. However, in my folder of documents and directions there
are no instructions on refreshments. Walking from the parking garage, my first
worry is that Mr. Banbury will be run over by a speeding car and miss the
conference entirely. A witty, foppish man carrying a cane, Banbury refuses my
offer of assistance, adjusts the shoulder strap of his leather purse, and
twirls his walking stick. When we finally locate our destination, I am endeared
to discover that it is tucked in a corner of the old post office building,
where, as a younger writer, I sent off dozens of manuscripts, kissing the
envelopes before handing them to the mail clerk.
There are two thankfully short lines at the Social Security Office. My charges
pick one and I pass out their forms. Just then, the clerk shuts the window like
a sideways mouth snapping at a fly. They shuffle over into the other line. When
the first of them, Tom Stoppard, reaches the clerk, he is instructed to step
aside and wait for the other clerk to return. His colleagues follow. Time
passes during which the playwrights and the old director describe for the
theater critic and the actress how their manuscripts are lovingly arranged,
cataloged, and boxed at the Ransom Center. Mr. Hare, whose eyes match perfectly
his blue shirt, seems especially enchanted that somewhere in the world someone
is being paid to look after his papers. Moving on to other self-amusements, Mr.
Billington, clutching his form, confesses to his questioning peers that his
middle name is “Keith.” Ms. Suzman, glamorously cloaked in brown, remarks,
“Darling, how sweet!”
Finally, our clerk returns from coffee break and the window snaps open. The
first problem is that social security cards cannot be mailed overseas, so the
address on each form must be changed. I feel like a schoolmarm correcting the
papers of my happy but dull-witted students. Then the box marked something
pleasant like “foreigner working for a pittance out of the kindness of his or
her heart” must be marked out and the correct, more jingoistic, box “alien not
allowed to work” must be checked.
Successfully processed, Mr. Stoppard, a man of Bob Dylan-like handsomeness who
earlier in the car had perfectly described Cormac McCarthy’s writing style as
“Biblical,” joins me to wait for the others. I confess that I had nearly
brought a copy of his play Jumpers for him to sign, thinking it would
make a nice gift for a friend who once directed the play. He offers that that
would have been okay. I explain that the reason I didn’t was that I had so
marked up this copy, underlining my favorite passages, that I couldn’t bear to
give it up. I was 19 at the time, I continue, just beginning to think I might
become a writer. Now my first novel is with an editor at a big New York
publishing house. I admit that back then I couldn’t have dreamed that I would
meet Mr. Stoppard some 15 years later. He adds, “Especially not at the Social
Security Office.” Our party gathers, our cars come for us, the weekend unfurls
with much laughter and a little controversy beneath a warm blue Texas sky. Our
guests will be assigned numbers in five to seven working days, just like
everyone else in line. — Robin Bradford
This article appears in December 13 • 1996 and December 13 • 1996 (Cover).