The Director welcomes Dr. Schoen and is himself introduced to the eminent man's fiancee. He conceals his surprise behind exaggerated politeness and, noticing the bunch of roses in his hand, gives a deep bow and presents them to her. Alwa joins them. Radiantly, the girl offers Alwa her congratulations, stretching out her hand to him. But before he can kiss it, the little group is torn apart by the hurtling body of the Stage Manager; when they recover their breath, he points, and they see that he has pushed them all to safety, out of the path of a huge piece of scenery which two scene-shifters are moving across. There is a general sigh of relief and then laughter at the unexpected excitements here, back-stage. Another piece of scenery is moved across the stage.
Dr. Schoen and his fiancee have found themselves back-stage at the height of the big scene change which is going on while the performance continues out in front. They are pushed this way and that, under constantly changing directions from the Stage Manager, whenever a scene-shifter has manoeuvred them into a dangerous corner. The girl is neither frightened nor upset, but laughs at this strange and lively chaos. She laughs at
The group of gladiators who leave the stage, marching majestically in time, each carrying in his arms two girls, whom, the moment they are off-stage, they let slide indifferently to the floor.
Dr. Schoen laughs gaily with her as
More gladiators come from the stage; the last one is carrying, not a girl on each arm, but a huge fellow gladiator. He drops him to the floor with some relief.
The girl is so absorbed in this sight that she is only just saved from falling into an open trap on the stage by the Stage Manager, who has come dashing up for at least the tenth time. In his zeal to save her, he himself steps backwards onto the trap cover which has reached the floor complete with trees and flower arrangements which the stage-hands have just carried off for the new scene. As the Stage Manager rises on the now re-ascending trap cover, camera tilts up to show him frantically trying to get off.
All the dancing girls pass below him, looking up and laughing at his predicament.
He calls down to them in dismay; it isn't funny, this is serious!
Even Dr. Schoen and his fiancee smile as they look up at this strange and amusing sight. Now that they know there is no danger they feel free to enjoy this joke at the Stage Manager's expense.
Meanwhile the poor victim is becoming more and more desperate, frantically looking up, then down for help. Nobody seems to care, nobody appreciates the calamity; everybody seems to think it is funny that he is suspended several feet above the stage right in the middle of a crucial scene-change!
Down below, the gladiators pass and wave cheerily up to him. And the fat 'sheik' stops to look up, and holds his sides with laughter. The Stage Manager has had enough. He can't wait for the trap to reach the floor again. But he hesitates; it's a long way down. He banishes fear from his mind, puts his script between his teeth, and, with one upward leap, springs from the trap cover
And lands right on the fat 'sheik's' broad shoulders. He helps himself to the 'sheik's' glass of beer and takes a long, needed gulp, before he is carried off, borne easily by the fat man. They go off, followed by other actors; the Stage Manager chaired aloft as though he were leading an Arabian procession.
[Dr. Schoen and his fiancee are pushed along by the tide of people. They go towards a quickly erected stair-shaped rostrum up which the Stage Manager is now driving a group of scantily clothed girls. Through the swarm of girls, on whom he doesn't waste a glance,] a little old man comes up a dresser, who carefully lays out pieces of costume on a chair. An actor dashes across and begins to change his costume, with the old man's help.
Dr. Schoen and his fiancee absently watch this scene until the Stage Manager flits across, sizes up the situation, and attracts the girl's attention away from the man undressing in the corner.
The actor, now in his underwear, quite unconcernedly puts on his bow-tie.
The Stage Manager distracts the girl's attention again, and, while her back is turned, urgently tries to make the actor realise the indecency of the situation. Very pointedly, the Stage Manager covers the lower part of his own body with his overall.
But the actor can't understand what's wrong and gestures, pointing to himself in surprise: 'What, me?' He looks down at himself closes his legs rather sharply, and the old dresser helps him quickly into his trousers.
The Stage Manager apologises to Dr. Schoen, who merely grins. The Stage Manager goes off to deal with further catastrophes.
Back-stage, amid the flurry of activity, he is trying to get things organised; actors and actresses stream past, and huge pieces of scenery are raised for the next act.
Two scene-shifters, moving a gigantic piece of scenery, cut the girl completely off from the scene, and from Dr. Schoen. Suddenly she is standing all alone before a huge wall. [She gropes her way to one side of it and then stops.]
Lulu is being undressed. She is changing into a new costume.
As the heavy piece of scenery is taken past her, the girl turns round and stops; for there, before her, she sees Lulu.
Lulu takes no notice either of the girl or of the other people hurrying by, despite the fact that she is half-naked.
By now Dr. Schoen is a little anxious about his fiancee. Catching sight of her at last, he comes up, laughing, not noticing Lulu. The Stage Manager rushes past them in his usual frenzy, making them both laugh.
[And Lulu doesn't at first see Dr. Schoen either, for one of the dressers has just drawn her skirt over her head. But at the moment when Lulu's head appears out of the folds of clothing, Dr. Schoen happens to be looking straight at her. His laugh dies in his throat. For a second, his embarrassment is such that he doesn't know what to do all the more so, as Lulu now sees him and in expectation of his greeting gives him a friendly smile, while the dressing goes on. But Dr. Schoen won't acknowledge her. He takes his fiancee by the arm and hastily leads her away.
Lulu stares after him. As yet she doesn't understand what has happened. Slowly the shameful fact bores its way into her consciousness: Dr. Schoen doesn't want to know her. She shakes her head, she wants to make herself believe that all this is not true.] Lulu stands there, adjusting her head-dress and staring, transfixed, at Dr. Schoen. The make-up assistant, unaware of all this, has taken a big powder-bowl and is about to go over Lulu's arms and back with a powder-puff.
But Lulu pushes his arm away with such a. short, sharp movement that his hand with the powder-bowl is flung into the air and the man's face becomes a mask of white powder, through which two infinitely astonished eyes stare at Lulu. And then she tears off the head-dress which has been so painstakingly arranged, and dashes off, leaving the make-up assistant standing bewildered.
As the truth becomes more and more clear to her, she wants to confront Dr. Schoen. But it is into the arms of the harassed Stage Manager that she actually falls, and he, with breathless energy, pushes her right back into the hands of the two dressers, so that they can continue the work of getting her ready to go on. Quickly they start to put her head-dress back on.
But a mood of helpless fury has taken hold of Lulu. She tears off the finery, flinging it at the Stage Manager, and pushes her way out, away from the attentions of the dressers. Camera pans with her as she runs away, followed by the Stage Manager, the two dressers and the make-up man. She is overtaken, held fast, and soon finds herself the centre of an excited ring of people who have hurried to the scene. She fights them all off furiously.
All this hustle and bustle back-stage brings the Director running to the scene to find out what the trouble is.
The Stage Manager is imploring Lulu to be calm, and presses the women and the make-up man to get to work on her again. This has altogether the wrong effect on Lulu. She begins to beat around her wildly, and screams with rage into the face of the Director who has come dashing up:
[TITLE: I'm not going on again!]
He remonstrates with her:
TITLE: Stop playing now!
[And at that, she starts to tear the costume off her body.]* {* We do not actually see Lulu doing this, but when next seen she is minus all the trappings of her costume.}
In an opening in the wings, Dr. Schoen is standing behind his fiancee who is interestedly watching a clown act being played in front of a drop-scene. Dr. Schoen looks behind him, for the Director has come up to him softly. With excited, mysterious whispering and a warning look at the girl, he fetches Dr. Schoen away, saying:
TITLE: You must bring her to her senses now.
Alwa comes to meet his father half-way. He, like the Director, is greatly agitated, and joins him in pleading with his father to talk sense into Lulu. Dr. Schoen calms them both with a superior gesture. Confident of his power, he walks through the passage which is opened for him by the group surrounding Lulu. He comes up and stands in front of her.
Lulu, her rage unabated, looks challengingly at him. Meanwhile the curious onlookers crowd round, Rodrigo among them, anxious not to miss anything.
Dr. Schoen bends over Lulu and lectures her
Lulu stares back resentfully as he wags a threatening finger at her. Unshaken by her resentment, he goes on lecturing her.
But Lulu will not take this quietly; by now in an absolute fury, she screams back at him.
The Stage Manager looks on, nervously biting his finger-nails, as Dr. Schoen insists she goes back on stage.
When he actually points to the stage in a commanding gesture, Lulu becomes coolly defiant. She turns her back to him, and sees
Rodrigo, who had been standing behind her; she takes hold of him and says provocatively:
TITLE: We'll do our Variety act after all!
And she pushes off with Rodrigo through the crowd.
Dr. Schoen loses his self-control. He thrusts aside the people standing next to him and dashes after Lulu and Rodrigo. Meanwhile the Director comes up to the Stage Manager, looking distinctly concerned.
Rodrigo, delighted, stops with Lulu in a corner back-stage. Dr. Schoen comes up to them, whereupon Rodrigo, in his role of gallant steps forward to protect Lulu. But Dr. Schoen's rage has been raised to fever pitch by Lulu's resistance, so shaming for him, and he looks at Rodrigo menacingly. And Lulu's gallant defender wants nothing more now than to wriggle out of his role as soon as possible. With a feeble show of contempt, he removes himself from the scene. Dr. Schoen stands before Lulu. He represses his desire to shout at her, but seizes her violently by the arm.
He tries to drag her off. Lulu slips out of his painful grip, stamping her feet up and down like an uncontrollable child in a temper. Dr. Schoen sweeps his arm commandingly towards the stage. [She hisses at him:
TITLE: I'll dance for the whole world but not in front of that woman!
The girl is still standing in the wings. The trio of clowns on stage are taking several bows as they leave. Just as they are squeezing past the girl, she turns and notices with astonishment that Dr. Schoen is not there.]
On stage, where the next scene has been set while all this has been going on, the Stage Manager has got the girls and the performers into their places. Seeing that the dance trio has ended, he turns to the wings and nods desperately. At his nod the Director sweeps onto the set, holding out his watch to show the Stage Manager the one fact he already knows only too well: it's time to raise the curtain on the next act. But what can the Stage Manager do if Lulu won't go on? He flings his script to the floor in bitter frustration.
In the corner, Dr. Schoen is angrily arguing with Lulu and nodding over at the stage: she must go on! But she won't! She pulls away from him while he tries to take her forcibly by the arm.
The Stage Manager is still protesting to the Director. Melodramatically, they turn their backs on each other and storm off in opposite directions. The Director runs over to
The corner where Dr. Schoen has, for the moment at least, pacified Lulu. He has his arm around her shoulder and is leading her to the quiet of the property room where they can talk in peace. As they reach the door, the Director comes up, breathlessly, and catches hold of him, [pointing despairingly to the stage]. Dr. Schoen turns and says to him, over his shoulder:
TITLE: It's all right, tell them to start!
The Director sighs with relief as the door is slammed in his face. He claps his hands and gives the Stage Manager an affirmative nod. The Stage Manager comes flying onto the stage and gives the sign to the curtain operator and electricians. [The spotlights blaze up.] The curtain operator begins to pull up the heavy curtain.
[At the last moment the Stage Manager slips from the scene, and the girls dance row by row down the steps.
Outside the Property Room, the Stage Manager comes running up looking for Lulu. A stage-hand, grinning, points his thumb at the property room door. The Stage Manager dashes towards it.
In the middle of all the senseless and dust-covered junk in the property room, Dr. Schoen confronts Lulu. All his restraints have fallen away from him and he is shouting at her with distorted features.
But, just as before, she goes on shaking her head in automatic rejection.]* {*This description in square brackets is taken from the original script, and was not seen in the version screened.}
Suddenly the Stage Manager comes bursting into the room. He stops in the doorway, putting his hand to his mouth in surprise at the sight of
Dr. Schoen holding Lulu closely in his arms. Dr. Schoen turns round, furious at this intrusion.
There in the doorway he sees the despairing figure of the Stage Manager, his hands folded in supplication.
Dr. Schoen lets go of Lulu's arms and springs across and throws him out, shutting the door angrily in the man's face. The Stage Manager gestures wildly, and in his anxiety gets his arm caught in the door. He wiggles his hand around ridiculously.
Outside the Property Room, the Stage Manager is desperately trying to pull his hand free from the door. At last he manages it, and, freed from his support, he falls against the brick wall, giving his head a sharp crack. All his breathless energy immediately evaporates. He rubs his head and his hand. The catastrophe, unforeseen and not fitting into his script, has thrown him right off his course. Perplexed and helpless, he stands with shaking knees outside the closed door, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a dirty white handkerchief. [For the first time, he turns to his script for help, leafing through the pages with trembling hands.]
In the Property Room, Dr. Schoen's struggle with Lulu has reached a climax. He is foaming with rage; it looks as if he is going to hit her. Lulu's temper, too, is verging on hysteria. She is incapable of answering him. With her bare back turned towards him, she covers her ears with her hands. [With two or three mad, sharp pulls, she tears off her dress.] She continues to shake her head she won't go on!
Dr. Schoen's rage is uncontrollable. He shakes her furiously.
Lulu resists convulsively, hysterically. She leans against the shelves which are filled with the thousand dead things waiting for the stage lighting to bring them to life. Her head falls back and soundlessly, unsteadily, she begins to weep, still shaking her head obstinately from side to side.
[And now Dr. Schoen feels himself at the end of his tether. Weakly he confronts the woman he loves. His brutal domineering attitude collapses, his confident movements become unsettled, his angrily clenched hands open, then close again. He stands pleading, even begging, before Lulu. In Lulu, too, a change is taking place.]
Outside the Property Room, the Stage Manager, who is still wiping his face with the handkerchief, gives a philosophical shrug. He's not going to worry any more. Let them get on with it he doesn't care!
On stage, between two big wings, we see that the performance is already in progress. In the foreground stand Alwa and the Director. Instead of the usual excitement there is an oppressed silence.
One of the actors plays himself towards the wings, frowning an urgent message at the Director :
TITLE: Where's Lulu?
The Director spreads his arms, as if to say: 'What can I do? And Alwa does the same. The Director turns round and runs off. Alwa is about to follow him, when his father's fiancee appears, bewildered, and asks him a question. Alwa, visibly embarrassed, avoids answering her.
In the Property Room, Dr. Schoen has a cigarette in his mouth. With angry movements he is trying to light a match, but in his temper all he does is break it.
Lulu has thrown herself, face down, onto a pile of cushions and costumes, and is sobbing convulsively. For a moment she raises her tear-stained face to see what Dr. Schoen is doing.
But then she quickly goes on sobbing even more; punching the costumes beneath her in hysterical anger, trying to attract his attention. Dr. Schoen, his face set and his back to Lulu, puts the cigarette back in his down-turned mouth, and hunts in his pockets for another match.
Unexpectedly, Lulu's feet kick him sharply around the ankles. Between sobs she says:
TITLE: Smoking's not allowed in here.
Dr. Schoen, the lighted match in his raised hand, turns with upraised eyebrows at this incongruous remark. He looks blankly at Lulu
Who has gone back to her agonised sobbing.
In a sudden rage, he flings both match and cigarette to the floor. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he begins to stalk around the room. He walks up and down, then from side to side, then up and down again, glancing helplessly at Lulu's pathetic form, stretched out as it is, face down on the pile of costumes. She is sobbing and kicking her feet in frustration. Lulu's weeping has a remarkable effect on Dr. Schoen. From having wanted to hit her a little while ago, he now kneels down beside her. Bending over her tossing head, his hands reach out to dry her eyes with his handkerchief. [He takes her by the shoulders and gently, caressingly, strokes Lulu's arms. His head sinks towards her, sinks down to her, leans against her shoulder. And the tall, once angry man caresses Lulu's body from head to foot. Lulu's face becomes calmer, brightens. Motionless, she lets his caresses play over her, while her eyes close with pleasure.]
At last she is in his arms in a tight embrace; helplessly he has surrendered to her, his arm round her shoulder, his fingers running through her hair.
The door is suddenly pushed open. Alwa stares in horror into the room. And behind him stands Dr. Schoen's fiancee. She stares, gazes with wide-open eyes at the spectacle.
Dr. Schoen is lying back on the pile of costumes with the half-naked Lulu wrapped in his arms, covering him with kisses. Lulu looks up at the sound; but he hears nothing, so absorbed is he in Lulu.
Alwa cannot move; he stares, frozen in horror. The girl has a stony, dignified expression on her face. [Alwa tries quickly to shut the door, but the girl prevents him by stretching out her arm in a commanding gesture.
Lulu's eyes stare at this little scene. Dr. Schoen suddenly awakens from his absorption, turns around and looks up at
The doorway where his fiancee is standing with her eyes fixed on him, lying there in Lulu's arms. But just then, she is pushed aside by the Stage Manager, breathless once more, now that the calamity can be averted. With clasped hands, he implores Lulu to come with him. Lulu has won. Victoriously she gathers up her costume. Without a look at Dr. Schoen, she dashes off through the door with the Stage Manager.]
We see the Stage Manager come leaping triumphantly from the room, past Alwa and Dr. Schoen's fiancee in the doorway, pulling the jubilant Lulu behind him. Camera pans across with them as Lulu runs into the hands of the make-up man and the wardrobe mistress, who rush to get her ready once more. Someone hands her the head-dress; another re-laces her costume. All is a bustle of activity again. The Stage Manager wipes his face with relief. Lulu is as happy as a child.
Still in the doorway, the girl stares fixedly at this scene. She half turns and stands for a while with a sunken head. Then, without raising her head, she turns about and walks silently and slowly towards the pass-door.
Just as she is about to open it, Alwa, who has followed her, comes up and looks at her imploringly, holding the door closed. But the girl only looks at him with big, despondent eyes. She then shakes her head gently, so that Alwa gives way and lets her open the door. She goes out. He stands gloomily in the open doorway for a moment, looking hopelessly after her.
[Lulu is not yet ready when her cue comes, and the Stage Manager pushes her onto the stage. The make-up man, with outstretched hand, is still powdering her back.]
In the open doorway of the Property Room, Dr. Schoen appears. His hair is wild, his tie undone. Mechanically, he puts his hand to his tie, but brokenly he drops his arm again. All he can do is lean wearily against the brick wall and wipe his face. His eyes stare dumbly at the stage where the radiant Lulu is now dancing.
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