⚫ In memoriam — Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory (1975–2026). Read the tribute →
Play Two of a Trilogy
A World of Possibility

The Empire

A two-act play. The forty-year stretch in which a wig-shop office becomes INTRAV, Royal Cruise Line, and one of the greatest American art collections in the world.

Working draft · Act I Scene 4 written
Setting St. Louis / Manhattan / Hong Kong / Abiquiu, NM · Years 1959–1999 · Running time ∼2h15m with one intermission

Dramatis personae

Scene structure

Act One · Building INTRAV

Wig-shop office to the “B or B” year, 1959–1967
  • I.1 — The Wig Shop. 1959. A rundown Alton, Illinois office. Barney fires Jenkins's daughter on day one.
  • I.2 — Harry Pope. A cafeteria lunch that lights the fuse. The Food Service Management Guild Europe tour.
  • I.3 — Buying out Jenkins. A $5,000-a-year deal for nine years. Both men think they got the better of it.
  • I.4 — Chop Suey. New York, 1973. The gallery negotiation. (Written in full below.)
  • I.5 — Two Lunches. 1965. A record-business heir offers $350,000 for the company. Hours later the chancellor of Washington University offers Barney a vice-chancellorship.
  • I.6 — B or B. The end of 1966. Barney dubs 1967 Big time or bankruptcy.

Intermission

Act Two · The Collection Finds Him

Ghost Ranch, Royal Cruise Line, and the gathering, 1967–1999
  • II.1 — The Orient Adventure. A junk in Victoria Harbor, a welcome banner, the keys to Kyoto.
  • II.2 — Royal Cruise Line, 1972. The Golden Odyssey's launch. Una Panagoupolos smashes the bottle.
  • II.3 — Lloyd Goodrich. 1973. The auction floor. Goodrich declares Barney's O'Keeffe her best.
  • II.4 — Ghost Ranch. 1974. Doris Bry calls. Barney does the arithmetic. He goes. Georgia in black.
  • II.5 — The OK Pin. The silver pin. The Star of David. The icebreaker. The friendship.
  • II.6 — Clipper Cruise Line, 1981. The small-ship idea. Antarctica.
  • II.7 — The 1987 Exhibition. St. Louis Art Museum, November 20. The Ebsworth Collection enters the public eye.
  • II.8 — The Sale. September 14, 1999. His sixty-fifth birthday. The signed document with Kuoni.
Act One · Scene 4 · Chop Suey

The $180,000 question

1973. A dealer's gallery in midtown Manhattan. An Edward Hopper oil painting from 1929 is on the wall, half-covered by a velvet cloth. The OLDER BARNEY narrates from his armchair.

Int. Zierler Gallery — East 57th Street, Manhattan — 1973 — Afternoon
A small gallery. A Hopper oil, CHOP SUEY, on the wall — two women in a Chinese restaurant, hat in the foreground, the angled afternoon light. A tea service on a table. BILL ZIERLER, 50s, patient, a dealer who has learned patience. BARNEY, 39, in a dark gray suit, looking at the painting without looking at it — the way a serious collector looks.
OLDER BARNEY
from the armchair
I had just bought a Hopper watercolor from Bill for sixty-five thousand
dollars. Cottages at North Truro, Massachusetts. A great watercolor. Not
this great.
BILL
I can't keep it much longer, Barney. The owners are getting impatient.
BARNEY
How much.
BILL
Two hundred thousand.
BARNEY does not move. BILL watches him.
BARNEY
It's a fair price.
BILL
I know it's a fair price.
BARNEY
I'm not prepared to spend that much on a picture.
BILL
Barney.
BARNEY
I'm not, Bill.
BILL lifts the teapot, considers it, sets it down.
BILL
Let me call the owners.
BILL steps into a small office offstage. BARNEY remains alone with the painting for a count of ten. He walks to it. Stands in front of it. The OLDER BARNEY watches from the armchair.
OLDER BARNEY
People ask me what I thought in that moment. I'll tell you exactly what I
thought. I thought: if I don't take it, in five years it will be worth four
hundred thousand, in twenty years it will be worth five million, in my
lifetime it will be worth twenty million dollars. I thought: even if I'm wrong
about all of that, I will regret not owning this painting every week for the
rest of my life.
OLDER BARNEY (cont'd)
Then I thought: I can't spend two hundred thousand dollars on a picture.
BILL returns.
BILL
They'll take one eighty.
BARNEY
That's very fair. I'm still not ready to spend that much on a picture.
A long beat.
BARNEY (cont'd)
Wait a minute.
BARNEY (cont'd)
I bought that Hopper watercolor from you last year for sixty-five thousand.
BILL
Yes.
BARNEY
If I send it back to you and you give me back my money — that brings this
one down to a hundred fifteen. I'm willing to spend a hundred fifteen.
OLDER BARNEY
to the audience, amused
It was just mental gymnastics to get myself over the fence I'd put up.
BILL
I can't. It's not my picture. I'm on consignment.
BARNEY
Then how about this. I'll give you an interest-free loan for the sixty-five
thousand. One year.
BILL
blinks
Done. Send me a letter.
They shake hands. BARNEY leaves. BILL looks at the painting for a moment, then covers it again with the velvet cloth. Lights down on BILL. A spot holds on the covered painting and on the OLDER BARNEY.
OLDER BARNEY
Three days later I got the paperwork. I read it. I looked at my watercolor
on the wall of the house on Sumac Lane. I could not part with it. I picked
up the pen and wrote Bill a check for one hundred eighty thousand dollars.
OLDER BARNEY (cont'd)
It was the highest jump over the fence I ever made. After that, the fence
was never there again.
OLDER BARNEY (cont'd)
softly
Forty-five years later, at Christie's, that painting sold for ninety-one point
nine million dollars. A world record for Edward Hopper.
OLDER BARNEY (cont'd)
My daughter Christiane was in the room when the hammer came down.
OLDER BARNEY (cont'd)
I was not.
Lights down except for the spot on the covered painting. Long hold. Blackout.
End of Act One, Scene 4
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