On the Verge- Blackheath Arts

On the Verge - Robert Burns

A young man's anguish in October 1962 as both his own world and that of the world around him threatens to fall apart

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Tracks

Inside The Office	5.26
2. The Mirage Of Freedom	18.23
3. The Scars Of Failure	24.23
4. Inside My Head	11.02

MAIN THEMES AND SYNOPSIS.

The story is concerned with the predicament of a disturbed young Office clerk called Humphrey George Bone in the autumn of 1962, and opens with his frustration with the repressive nature of his employment, as he counts down the minutes leading to his lunch break.

In a sequence sub-titled THE MIRAGE OF FREEDOM The young man’s relief at being released from the confines of the Office is sharply curtailed, when he is forced by financial circumstances to eat in an unkempt workman’s café.

Alone once more amidst the lunchtime crowds, he attempts to escape from the drab reality of his existence by entertaining delusions of grandeur. Then as he retreats to the quiet of a city square, he recalls childhood memories of happier times, first as an altar boy watched by his mother and later at a school cricket match.
However his day dreams are soon blown away by the mocking voice of his conscience, which brings him back to reality.

As he passes by a Salvation Army group, appealing in vain to a non-caring by-passing crowd, and thence through the laden fruit stalls of a flourishing market, he is struck by the brash intensity of the bustling crowd, and this, prompted by his alter ego, causes him to reflect on the hollow nature of a society, which far from being democratic is entirely governed by the pursuit of money.

His thoughts are disturbed again as he notices the clock ticking onwards to curtail his freedom, and as the pressure mounts he thinks of his wife and two children, and in an extended flashback he relives the cruel events, which led to the loss of a previous job and thence to the humiliating loss of his home and temporary separation from his family.

Chided by the inner voice of his conscience (which also reflects that of society at large.) for his lack of gumption and self pitying stance, he responds with a violent outburst at the pain he sees everywhere in the city and the bitterness he feels at his own position.

He tries to counter this by comparing his own cultural values with that of the crowd, but is haunted by the fact that he sees himself as an abject failure, and his alienation from society is further confirmed, when he expresses his contempt for the mantras and slogans of the Advertising Industry and the ignorant masses, who rush to embrace them.

Meanwhile as newspaper headlines scream out of a crisis, Humphrey is revealed as a man in conflict. For though he knows that it is time to return to the office, he is consumed by the fact that his wife has left him once again and denied him access to his children.

Then as he walks further and further away from the office and sits on a bench in a park, he is beset by memories of the time he spent in an Army prison for going absent without leave, and this serves to remind him of the price to be paid for bucking the system.

In spite of this Humphrey can think of nothing else save his wife’s departure, and as he plunges his hand inside his deep breast pocket to retrieve a document, he stares at it in horror.

For in it is his wife’s claim for custody of the children, together with a demand that he be assessed for maintenance.

Humphrey puts the document in his pocket and pushes on blindly. He no longer knows where he is going, for besides his complete disillusion with the society in which he is forced to live, he now knows that he has lost the only person that he loved together with his children.

Meanwhile as a transistor radio announces the arrest as a spy of a British businessman in Moscow, Humphrey hears the voice of his priest as the priest chastises him for running from responsibility. While a further flashback describes the ransacking of Humphrey;s marital home by his wife’s relatives and Humphrey’s shocked reaction to this, and as Humphrey staggers onwards he is tormented by the accusations of voices repeatedly ringing in his head.

It then emerges that Humphrey was forced to see a probation officer after a confrontation with the police, when he was first denied access to his children. And at that meeting Humphrey confesses that in order to secure work he had been forced to cover up the fact that he’d been fired from a previous job by falsifying job applications including that for his present job.

Weighed down in sorrow after realising that his wife will never return to him, Humphrey reflects on his miserable condition, and in his distraught state of mind relives the brutality he had daily witnessed and indeed had suffered himself in the Army and asks himself ‘Why should I care?’

At this moment the skies open up, and as crowds flee the park amidst a torrential downpour, Humphrey wanders on alone.

And now drenched, bedraggled, tossed, torn, anguished with emotion
He shouts to the skies above him and in doing so lays bare his rank despair at what he sees is his life of abject failure.

Plagued by voices and tormented thoughts within his head, Humphrey confesses that he has never been able to fit in with society and indeed believes he never will. For he is riddled with doubt and disillusion to such an extent that he has a vision of annihilation, destruction and despair.

Suddenly however the voices stop, as does the rain, and in a moment of revelation, Humphrey sees quite clearly that his duty to his children demands that he turn around and head back to the office.

Mounting the stairs to the Director’s suite, past the long baleful glances of his fellow workers, Humphrey is full of trepidation as he taps on the door and prepares to face the Director, for he knows that it’s too late now for all else but the truth.
To his astonishment however, when Humphrey breaks down under pressure and tells the director that his wife has left him and reveals his fears for his children, the Director behaves with great kindness and overwhelmed by this, Humphrey returns to his desk, still unhappy, bored with his job, frustrated, but resolved to give his job one last try.

The following day as Humphrey arrives at the office still feeling very shaky, news flashes round the world that the world could face a nuclear disaster. For the countdown to a clash between the superpowers has already begun and has now reached the point of crisis over Cuba.

And all at once all Humphrey’s doubts and distrust of the society in which he lives and in which he’s found it so hard to fit in, are confirmed.

For now the world like him is on the verge… of Carnage ! Madness !
Utter Breakdown.

On the Verge - Robert Burns

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