Mike Leigh on Best Efforts (Dedicated to Larry Garvin)

Helen Lenoir: Now, gentlemen, we all know why we’re here.  We seem to have come to something of a stand-still.

Arthur Sullivan: Indeed, we have.

Lenoir: Which, Arthur, is because?

Sullivan: Because, Helen, I am unable to set the piece that Gilbert persists in presenting.

W.S. Gilbert: The piece I persist in presenting, Sullivan, is substantially altered each time; otherwise, there would be little point in presenting it to you.

Sullivan: With all due respect, old chap, it is not substantially altered at all.  You seem merely to have grafted onto the first act the tantalizing suggestion that we are to be in the realms of human emotion and probability, only to disappoint us by reverting to your familiar world of topsy-turvydom.

Gilbert: That which I have grafted on to Act One, Sullivan, has been specifically at your request.  And, if you take exception to topsy-turvydom, you take exception to a great deal of my work of the past twenty-five years, not to mention much of what you and I have written together since Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-One.

Sullivan: That is patent balderdash.

Gilbert: Is it?

Lenoir: Gentlemen.  If we might keep things cordial, we may make some progress.  Arthur, can you really not see your way to setting this new piece?

Sullivan: Alas, Helen, I cannot.

Lenoir: Cannot or will not?

Sullivan: I am truly unable to set any piece that is so profoundly uncongenial to me.

Lenoir: Uncongenial though it may be to you, I must remind you that we here are conducting a business.

Sullivan: And may I remind you, Helen, that I am not a machine.

Lenoir: I would not suggest for one moment that you were.

Sullivan: You all seem to be treating me as a barrel-organ.  You have but to turn my handle, and “Hey Presto!,” out pops a tune.

Lenoir: Oh come now, that’s not fair.  You are both contractually obliged to supply a new work on request.

Gilbert: The very act of signing the joint contract dictates that we must be businesslike.

Lenoir: Yes, Mr. Gilbert, and I was wondering whether you might not be able to solve our wee difficulty.

Gilbert: How, pray?

Lenoir: By simply writing another libretto.

Gilbert: That’s out of the question.  I have worked for many long months at this play, which I have every confidence will be the best we have yet produced at the Savoy.  To abandon it would be not only criminal, but wasteful.

Lenoir: I see….  What I don’t understand, Arthur, is why you cannot set this piece.   You’re our greatest composer.  Surely, you can do anything.

Sullivan: How very kind you are, Helen.  But, I say again to you all: I am at the end of my tether.  I have been repeating myself in this class of work for too long and I will not continue so to do.

. . .

Gilbert: If you wish to write a grand opera about a prostitute dying of consumption in a garret, I suggest you contact Mr. Ibsen in Oslo.  I’m sure he will be able to furnish you with something suitably dull.

. . .

Sullivan: The opportunity to treat a situation of tender, human, and dramatic interest is one I long for more than anything else in the world.

Gilbert: If that is your sincere desire, I would be willing, with Carte’s permission to withdraw my services for one term, to allow you to write a grand opera with a collaborator with whom you have a closer affinity than myself.

Sullivan: No, Gilbert.

Gilbert: I’m in earnest, Sullivan.

Richard D’Oyly Carte: No doubt that is something we shall be pursuing in the future.

Gilbert: Indeed.  Well, that is your prerogative, Carte.

Lenoir: However, we are concerned with the present.  Arthur, will you or will you not set Mr. Gilbert’s new and original work?

Sullivan: Ma belle Héléne, ce n’est pas possible.

Lenoir: Truly?

Sullivan: I’m afraid so.

Lenoir: That being the case, Mr. Gilbert, would I be right in supposing that you remain unable to accommodate us?

Gilbert: Indeed, Miss Lenoir.  I have had what I deem to be a good idea and such ideas are not three a penny.

Lenoir: What a pity.  This will be a very sad day for many thousands of people.

from Topsy-Turvy (October Films 1999)

[Keith A. Rowley]