(One-Act Magic Realism Playlet)
 |
| N. S. Murty |
FOREWORD
The year 2016 marked the 400th
anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright in the
English language. A poignant anecdote from the pages that follow, defines this
great man: ‘Shakespeare made ALL the
world his stage, all languages, tongues and dialects his liege….’ What better
time to pen a tribute to this world famous genius.
The opening scene of this
amazing play, centred round a forgotten and neglected bust of Shakespeare, spirited
me away to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London where I imagine it being
performed. This commemorative work is a vivid reminder of why it is important,
and indeed educationally valuable, to become familiar with the works of this
world famous writer. To neglect to do so, merely because the language of the
Elizabethan era differs somewhat from that used today, is not reason enough to avoid
cultivating a sense of belonging to this area of literature. This play speaks
volumes; it invites the audience to ‘come on in and test the waters.’ To ignore
the presence of the wisdom and historical value contained in Shakespeare’s
works undoubtedly leaves a vacuum in the soul. This cleverly penned play whets
the appetite and leaves one wanting more; it opens the door to the possibility
of a new and exciting understanding and appreciation which has the potential to
be life-changing. Accept the invitation to walk beside this modern day
playwright as he places some of the works of Shakespeare in a nutshell. This
play crushes the idea that we are separated by class, education or cultural
identity; ardent fans of The Bard’s work will merely appreciate the intent behind
this citation, whereas the novice may become increasingly aware that
comprehending the works of the most important playwright of all time is,
indeed, within the range of their understanding.
One of the main characters
in the play is a mystic character, an old man, who in the past is supposed to
have told the child, Shakespeare, stories in a rudimentary form, which later
become his literary corpus. On stumbling upon a bust of the great man, he is
aghast at its derelict state and attempts to remove the cobwebs, bird droppings
and dead leaves that adorn it. Children appear and are forced to get into
conversation with the old man when their ball accidentally hits him; the
apology that ensues leads to a conversation about story telling. As the play progresses, the old man agrees to
tell the children some stories and to sing to them; they receive an education
like never before! There is clever use of one of the most well-known monologues
from As You Like It: ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely
players.’ Throughout the play, the old
man sings a few lines of the seven stages of life to the children. As he sings,
characters from his plays appear one after another and enact the seven stages.
Further magical scenes
follow as characters from The Bard’s plays appear and re-enact the stories. The
children remain enthralled which cements the fact that Shakespeare’s legacy is
for young and old alike. As Ben Jonson (a peer and rival during the Elizabethan
age) said of Shakespeare: ‘he was not of
an age but for all time.’
A soldier comes into the
equation and questions the wisdom of, what he considers to be fancy tales;
‘Tell them about history, war and bravery’ he advises. An exchange of opinions
follow.
This play is a reminder that
Shakespeare was a man of the people which contributes to his appeal and no
doubt influenced the eloquence of his prose. It should be remembered that he
rose to fame in spite of his modest education and humble beginnings; his plots
present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts. This is
made plainly evident in this script by the inclusion of appropriate and carefully
selected scenes from Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies and histories; for
example The Tempest, Hamlet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, The
Merchant of Venice, Troilus and Cressida and King Henry IV. These excerpts serve
to bring Shakespeare’s phenomenal works to life within a modern day setting.
The descriptions of the set
design to match the tone of this play, offer vivid visual impressions, i.e. ‘the
wind changes direction:’ ‘The place
looks dark, desolate and remote.’ ‘There will be a sudden flourish and the
whole stage becomes dark.’ ‘Slowly, the right stage gets illuminated.’
In the finale, all the
ghosts, spirits and apparitions come to the fore stage and mingle with the
characters and all of them sing in unison, which would make a splendid and
dramatic curtain call.
This skilled and well
planned tribute (by a published author) to the greatest playwright of all time,
offers the audience an opportunity to rediscover one of life’s greatest assets,
the power and importance of language and the written word. Although this play
is based on a world we have lost, it is much about the future as it is the past
because although we may not be conscience of it, Shakespeare walks beside each
and every one of us through our everyday language.
Salutations to our good
friend, the Bard of Avon.
***
Old Man: Who taught child Shakespeare all the
stories which later become his literary corpus.
Boy 1 }
Boy 2 } Children playing rugby who accidentally
stumble upon the Oldman
Girl 1 }
Girl 2 }
Shakespearean
Characters and text
Miranda: } From The
Tempest Act I Scene II
Prospero: }
Polonius: }
From Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark Act I
Scene III
Hamlet }
Act III Scene I
Romeo: } From Romeo and Juliet Act II Scene
II
Juliet: }
Portia: } From The Merchant of Venice, Act IV
Scene I
Arragon: }
Act
II Scene IX
King Lear }
From King Lear, Act IV Scene VI and Act V Scene III
Gloucester }
Edgar }
Brutus }
From Julius Caesar Act III Scene II
Sir John Falstaff} From King Henry IV, Act V Scene
I
Cassandra }
From Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene II
And ………………Spirits, Ghosts, Apparitions, Witches,
Fairies and their ilk.
(From
the top branch of Muse
An
eerie melody sweeps through ether
Matter
springs to life for a while to amuse
And
the spirit returns, saying it doesn’t matter)
A
humble tribute to his master by a subject
On the eve
of his 400th Death Anniversary
The
Word Wiz
(Playlet)
(Note:
All text in italics other than stage directions is Shakespearean)
When the curtain
raises the fade out is on the memorial of Shakespeare. It will be in the
typical Indian fashion: The bust of the bard in ruins sitting on a high
platform, dusty and faded, wrapped in cobwebs and littered with bird droppings.
The place looks dark, desolate and remote. Foot of the platform littered with
dry leaves all over. The growth of bushes and the dust collecting over betray
that it has been abandoned for long.
From afar children
playing rugby, their cries, their calls, their shouts and hullaballoo is heard.
As the stage gets
slowly illuminated an old man enters from one end of the stage and slowly
passes by it. He stops and looks at the statue for a while putting his
hand over his eyes and then suddenly exclaims
Old man: “Oh! Me! Gee
god! What a curse!”…
(He dusts the
statue passionately with his hands and his towel and cleans the surrounds
plucking few plants from the neighbourhood.)
When I told you those myths and legends
They were just that.
But when you breathed life into ’em
On this Globe, they just walked into every home
God had summoned Light
But failed to keep his work intact.
Then came you, to complement his acquit,
It is no hyperbole, his whole, your ‘less’
dominate’.
His make withered… See you me?
While yours, walks free, steeple chasing time.
(Wind changes
direction frequently putting to nought what he had done earlier. Then on one
occasion he roars at it)
“You element! Are you in your elements?
Know you what you have been doing?
Rage as you wish elsewhere.
But here, weave as gentle not to move a feather
The Bard is resting here under.
Might be scripting a tale or two to the new
audiences.”
(The wind ceases. As
he resumes his work, children playing rugby enter chasing a ball that has come
off-the-stage. The ball hits the old man. All of them halt and put on faces of
regret. One of the boys comes forward.)
Boy1: We
are so very sorry. It was an accident.
Our playfulness over ran our propriety.
But Sir! What are you doing at this forlorn place?
Old man: It’s Easter
today
But it seems it was only yesterday.
I was sitting under that tree
When youth of your age used to flock around me
Pestering to tell them a tale each day.
Girl1: Oh! Then I get you. You’re the famed
story teller.
My granny tells many stories about you.
Where have you been all along?
Why don’t you sing us that “All the world is a
stage…”
Boy
2 (to
other boys) Boys!
It’s quits for the game.
(With the old man)
Tell us some stories.
All
Yes, we want to hear some stories.
(In
chorus): It
was long since we heard any story.
Boy
2: No, but first that song.
Old man: Music
and tales are so close to your heart, I know.
But tell me do you want the song or the tale first.
All:
We want the song
first.
(Old man sings the song ‘All the world is a
stage…’
As he begins the song, fade out will be on him.)
(As he sings the
song characters from his plays come one after another and enact the seven
stages of life. The stage is divided between the old man and the
characters and the focus will be alternating between them. When the old
man sings the line “…at first an infant, mewing and puking in the nurse’s
arms…” The scene from The Tempest Act I
Scene II is enacted when Prospero speaks to Miranda)
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and
women are players;
They have their exits and entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts, the acts
being seven ages.
At first the infant, mewing and puking in the
nurse’s arms….
(A
howling of Tempest precedes the entry of characters)
“Miranda: “(Father!)
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am; but stopped,
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding, ‘stay: not yet.’
Prospero: (Miranda!)
The hour’s now come;
The very minute bids thee open thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?
I do not think thou canst, for then thou was not
Out three years old.
Miranda:
Certainly, sir, I can.
Prospero: By
what? By any other house, or person?
Of anything the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
Miranda:
‘Tis far off;
And rather like a dream, than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?
Pros:
Thou hadst, and more, Miranda.
But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou
else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember’st aught, ere thou cam’st here,
How thou cam’st here, thou may’st.
Miranda: But
that I do not.
Prospero: Twelve
year since, Miranda, twelve year since
Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and
A prince of power.
Miranda: Sir,
are not you my father?
Prospero: Thy
mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir
A princess; no worse issued.
Miranda:
O, the heavens!
What foul play had we that we came from thence?
Or blessed wasn’t we did?
Prospero:
Both, both, my girl:
By foul play, as thou say’st, we were heaved
Thence;
But blessedly holp hither.
Miranda: My
heart bleeds
To think of the teen that I have turned you to,
Which is from my remembrance.
[Focus shifts back to
the old man. As he sings: ‘ then the whining school boy, with his satchel, and
shining morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school’ ………. the
scene from The Hamlet Act I scene III is enacted where Polonius gives
advice to his son Laertes:]
“Polonius: Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard, for
the shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing
With thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to your soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade.
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear‘t that the opposed may beware of these.
Give everyman thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and a friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all; to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!”
Old man Sings…
(As he sings “And
then the lover, sighing like furnace, with woeful ballad made to his mistress’
eyebrow” the scene from Romeo and Juliet Act II Scene II is enacted
where Romeo speaks to Juliet by her window)
“Romeo: By
a name I know not how to tell thee who I am;
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;
Had I it written, I would tear that word.
Juliet:
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound:
Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?
Romeo:
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.
Juliet:
How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb;
And the place death, considering who thou art,
Of any of my kinsman find thee here.
Romeo:
With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt;
And therefore your kinsmen are no stop to me.
Juliet:
If they do see they will murder thee.
Romeo:
Alack! There lies more peril in thine
eye
Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity
Juliet:
I would not for the world they saw thee
here,
Romeo:
I have night’s cloak to hide from
their eyes;
And but thou love me, let them find me here;
My life were better ended by their hate,
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.”
Old man: Sings
As he
sings “then a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard,
jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the babble reputation
even in the cannon’s mouth” the scene from The Merchant of Venice Act II
Scene IX when the prince of Arragon makes his bid to select the right casket is
enacted: Flourish of Cornets. Enter the Prince of Arragon, Portia, with
their retinue.)
“Portia: Behold, there stand the caskets, noble prince,
If you choose wherein I am contain’d,
Straight our nuptial rights shall be solemnised;
But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,
You must be gone from hence immediately.
Arr.
I am enjoin’d by oath to observe three things;
First, never to unfold to any one
Of the right casket, never in my life
To woo a maid in way of marriage;
Lastly,
If I do fail in the fortune of my choice,
Immediately to leave you and be gone.
Portia:
To these injunctions every one doth swear
That comes to hazard for my worthless self.
Arr:
And so have I address’d me. Fortune
now
To my heart’s hope! Gold; Silver; and base
Lead.
Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath:
You shall look fairer, ere I give or hazard
What says the golden chest? Ha! Let me see;
Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.
What many men desire! That ‘many’ may be meant
By the fool multitude, that chose by show,
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;
Which pries not the interior, but, like the
martlet,
Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
Even in the force and the road of casualty.
I will not choose what many men will desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits
And rank myself with barbarous multitudes.
Why then to thee, thy silver treasure-house;
Tell me once more what title thou dost bear:
Who chooseth me gets as much as he deserves
And well said too; for who shall go about
To cozen fortune and be honourable
Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity.
O! That estates, degrees, and offices
Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer.
How many then should cover that stand bare;
How many be commanded that command;
How much low peasantry would then be glean’d
From the true seed of honour; and how much honour
Pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times
To be new-varnish’d! Well, but to my choice:
Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.
I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,
And instantly unlock my fortune here. (He opens the
silver casket)
Portia:
Too long a pause for what you find there.
Arr:
What’s
here? The portrait of a blinking idiot,
Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.
How much unlike thou art to Portia!
How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!
Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.
Did I deserve no more than a fool’s head?
Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?”
Old
man: Sings…
(As he sings “And
then the justice, in fair round belly with capon lined, with eyes severe, and
beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays
his part” The scene from First part of King Henry IV Act V scene I is
enacted when the prince, King Henry, and others prepare for war. Sir John
Falstaff enters the stage after the following conversation:
(Off the stage)
“King: and, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture
thee,
Albeit considerations infinite
Do make it against it. No, good Worcester, no,
We love our people well; even those we love
That are misled upon your cousin’s part;
And will they take the offer of our grace,
Both he and they and you, yea, every man
Shall be my friend again, and I will be his.
So tell your cousin, and bring me word
What he will do; but if he will not yield,
Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,
And they shall do their office. So be gone:
We will not now be troubled with reply;
We offer fair, take it advisedly.
Prince: It will not be accepted, on my life.
The Douglas and Hotspur both together
Are confident against the world in arms.
King:
Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;
For, on their answer, will we set on them;
And God befriend us, as our case is just!
Falstaff:
Hal, if thou see me down in the battle,
And bestride me, so ‘tis a point of friendship.
Prince:
Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship.
Say thy prayers, and farewell.
Falstaff:
I would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well.
Prince:
Why, thou owest God a death.”
(Falstaff enters fore stage)
Falstaff:
‘Tis not due yet: I would be loath to pay him before
His day. What need I be so forward with him
that calls not
On me? Well,‘tis no matter; honour pricks me
on. Yea,
But how if honour prick me off when I come on? How
then?
Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an
arm? No. Or take
Away the grief of the wound? No. Honour
hath no skill in
Surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is
that
Word honour? Air. A trim
reckoning! Who hath it? He that
Died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it?
No. Doth he hear it?
No. Is it insensible then? Yes, to the
dead. But will it not
Live with the living? No. Why?
Detraction will not suffer it.
Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere
scutcheon; and so
Ends my catechism.”
Old
man: Sings:
(As he
sings “The sixth stage shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, his youthful hose well saved, a
world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again
toward childish tremble, pipes and whistles in his sounds. the following
scene from King Lear Act IV Scene VI is enacted:
“Lear:
No, they
cannot touch me for coining; I am the king myself.
Edgar: O thou side-piercing sight!
Lear: Nature’s above art in that respect.
There’s your press-money. That fellow handles
his bow like a crow-keeper:
draw me a clothier’s yard. Look, look! a
mouse.
Peace, peace! this piece of toasted cheese will
do’t.
There’s my gauntlet; I will prove it on a
giant.
Bring up the brown bills. O! well flown,
bird;
i’ the clout, i’ the clout: hewgh! Give the
word.
Edgar: Sweet marjoram.
Lear:
Pass.
Glou.
I
know that voice.
Lear. Ha! Goneril, with a white beard! They
flattered me like a dog, and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the
black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said!
‘Ay’ and ‘no’ too was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once
and the wind to make me chatter, when the thunder would not peace at my
bidding, there I found ’em , there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not
men o’ their words: they told me I was everything;‘t is a lie, I am not
ague-proof.
Glou.
The trick of the voice I do well remember:
Is’t not the king?
Lear.
Ay, every
inch a king:
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?
Adultery?
Thou shall not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to‘t, and the small guilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive; for Glouster’s bastard son
Was kinder to his father than my daughters
Got ‘tween the lawful sheets.
To‘t, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.
Behold yond simpering dame,
Whose face between her forks presageth snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name;
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to‘t
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs.
Though women all above:
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiend’s:
There’s hell, there’s darkness, there’s the
sulphurous pit,
Burning, scalding, stench, consumption; fie, fie,
fie!
Pah! pah! give me an ounce of civet, good
apothecary,
To sweeten my imagination: there’s money for thee.
Glou.
O! Let me
kiss that hand.
Lear
Let me
wipe it first; it smells of mortality.
Glou.
O ruin’d piece
of nature! This great world
Shall so wear out to nought. Dost thou know
me?
Lear.
I remember
thine eyes well enough. Dost thou sqiny at me?
No, do thy worst, blind cupid; I will not
love. Read thou this
Challenge; mark but the penning of it.
Glou.
Were all
thy letters suns, I could not see.
Edgar. (Aside):
I would not take this from report; it is,
And my heart breaks at it.
Lear.
Read.
Glou.
What! with the case of eyes?
Lear
O, ho! Are you there
with me? No eyes in your head,
Nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in
a heavy case,
Our purse in a light: yet you see how this world
goes.
Glou.
I see it feelingly.
Lear
What! Art mad? A man may see how the world goes
With no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how
yond justice
Rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine
ear: change
Places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice,
which is the
Thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at
a beggar?
Glou.
Ay, sir.
Lear
And the creature run from the cur?
There you might’st behold the great image of
authority;
A dog’s obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own
back;
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the
cozener.
Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin
with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags; a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none, I say, none; I‘ll able ’em:
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass
eyes;
And like scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not. Now, now,
now, now;
Pull off my boots; harder, harder; so.
Edgar.
(Aside) O! Matter and impertinency mix’d; Reason in madness.
Lear
If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes;
I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester;
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither;
Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air
We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.
Glou.
Alack, alack the day!
Lear
Wwhen we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools. This a good
block!
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt; I‘ll put‘t in proof,
And when I have stol’n upon these sons-in-law,
Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
Enter a Gentleman, with attendants.
Gent.
O! Here he is; lay hand upon him.
Sir, your most dear daughter—
Lear
No rescue?
What! a prisoner? I am even the natural fool
Of fortune. Use me well; you shall
have ransom.
Let me have surgeons; I am cut to the brains.
Gent.
You shall have anything.
Lear
No
seconds? all myself?
Why this would make a man a man of salt,
To use his eyes for garden water-pots
Ay, and laying autumn’s dust.
Gent.
Good sir,–
Lear:
I will die
bravely, like a smug bridegroom. What!
I will be jovial; come, come; I am the king,
My masters, know you that?
Gent.
You are a
royal one, and we obey you.
Lear
Then
there’s life in‘t. Nay, an you get it,
You shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa,
sa. (Exit: Lear)”
Old man Sings:
(As he sings “Last
scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness
and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” the
scene from King Lear Act V Scene III is enacted:
“Lear:
(With Cordelia in his
arms)
Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! You are men
of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heavens vault should crack. She’s gone
for ever.
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.
This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her; now she’s gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! Stay a little. Ha!
What is’t though say’st! Her voice was ever
soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in the woman.
I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Did not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip; I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me.
Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you
straight.
And my poor fool is hang’d ! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no
more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you undo this button; thank you, sir
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!
(Dies)
The
focus shifts back to the old man
Boy1
Wah! Wah!
Boy2
Excellent! Excellent! Your song is excellent!
Old man: But it is
not mine. It is his (pointing to the statue)
Who made all this world his stage,
All languages, tongues, and dialects his liege,
And nature which was so proud of its prowess
In creating characters at its will and fancy
Was still blinking its eyes in wonder at a Portia,
A Cordelia, a Juliet, an Ophelia or a Lucrece.
When his villains speak, they echo every man in no
man
And when his heroes act, they seem down to earth.
The gamut of his writing is not to blare his genius
But to sum up: we differ merely from barriers
without
When he wrought passions, they were neither random
Nor were they native to a soil, race or colour.
He chartered the scape of whole human emotions
And collected every single spec worth its name
Only to reflect like a faithful looking glass
For men to look-in, peruse, amend, and rejoice.
He never takes sides with good or evil
Nor hies behind his rolls just to preach a sermon
He bares the human contradictions, dilemmas, and
disciplines
Without a hint of contrivance, from a natural flow
of events.
We wail, we laugh, we play, get hurt, and simper
As he conjures up events from our very life
As the emotion dissipates it leaves no stains
But a sweet lingering aroma lasting our life time.
Boy1
What is his name?
Old man: Didn’t you
ever hear any stories
From your grannies at the fire place?
Boy2
My grand pa was the best story
teller.
He would spin a story in a trice.
Girl1
My grand ma was even better.
Never was her story treasure empty.
Girl2
My mother tells me a story at bedtime
But she never repeats herself any time
Did you ever hear about the merchant
Who pawned himself for his friend’s love?
Boy1
Do you know about the king
Who tested the loyalties of his offspring?
Girl1
That is a household story
But have you ever heard how to tame a shrew?
Boy2
My grandsire tells exotic
stories
About dreams, fantasies and what not.
All
(Simultaneously): My grand pa
is great,
No, my granny is great
No, my mother is great,
No my grandsire is great.
Old man: But do you know
where they got these stories from?
Boy2:
O, I forgot. Was it Shake…. Something?
Old man: Say it
properly. William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon.
(Enter a soldier)
Soldier:
Why spoil their youth with fiction and fancy tales?
Tell them about history, about war and bravery.
Old man: Brave
soldier! Good luck to thee.
But fiction is no easy meat to cook, prithee
True. You must wage war
Against no-law, no-custom, and no-scruple.
But if wars, laws and vengeance
Could discipline, chastise and correct people
We wouldn’t have had these any more.
Good and evil, the hemispheres of character
Wax and wane, by turns, at one another’s expense.
Fiction gives vent to the heroics within
And resurrects to life the springs drying up in
psyche.
History is a recipe, a decocture from the past
Filtering fact from fiction, take whit by whit.
It is a lamp, not the spade that helps clear your
way
And our duty is just that, ‘fore we pass away.
Soldier:
Might be so. But, I fear your fiction
Dries up the heroics at that.
Reason, no doubt, seasons our emotion
But an excess of it inhibits our action.
Fancy is a flight, no one wants to get down
The wings of crazy ideas and exotic things
The world looks oblong, flat and perplexing.
History, on the contrary, is a record of our kin
Our lives, a reliving of theirs, events scattered
though.
We make the same mistakes, feel same passions
Witness mutely the events... momentary and
momentous
Silly and serious, brazen and civil, timorous and
trepid
We inherit their fate and fortunes alike.
Old man: So, by
consequence,
History and fiction stand on the same pedestal.
Soldier: But
with some knowledge and the will to work our way,
We can steer thro’ rough waters to possible safer
shores.
Old man: Isn’t life’s
mirth or misery a chance?
Soldier:
Doesn’t bravery take the seat of chance?
If the world were surfeit of geniuses and giants
Wouldn’t actions end before they incubate in mind?
Action is the spice of thought
And if it were absent, life reduces to inanimate.
History whets action by comparison.
Old man: Life
imagined through history is fancy.
But fiction nearer to life is history.
I sow these seminal minds
With the viable seeds of fiction
That when they are up against a Brutus
They play Mark Antony
And when they are up against Hotspurs
They play the Henries.
Children: But we want
to hear the tales you said you told him
(They point
towards the statue)
Old man: Didn’t you
hear the legend
That he who touches his quill
Shall see before him, his matter, making a drill
Girl1
Then let me chance to touch it first
To see in me the best or the worst.
(She attempts to
touch the quill and there will be a sudden flourish and the whole stage becomes
dark. Slowly the right stage gets illuminated and the following scene
from Troilus and Cressida, Act II Scene 2 will be enacted where Cassandra, a
prophetess, comes running on to the stage)
Cassandra: “Cry, Trojans, cry! Lend me ten thousand eyes.
And I will fill them
with prophetic tears.
Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,
Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,
Add to my clamours! Let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry! Practise your eye with tears!
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our fire brand brother, Paris, burn us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen and a woe!
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or let Helen go. (Exit)”
Left
stage gets illuminated and the girl asks in all innocence
Girl1
What does it mean?
Old man: Baby, you are! Innocent
to the core.
As elements play their role,
They please and frighten your soul.
You see things that others can’t think
And when you prophesise the world takes no wink
Boy1 Let
me try then.
(There will be a sudden flourish and the whole
stage becomes dark. Slowly the right stage gets illuminated and the
following scene from Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, Act III Scene 1 is enacted
where Hamlet, the prince comes on to the stage)
Hamlet: “To
be, or not to be: that is the question;
Whether‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to takes arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to
sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartaches and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d, To die, to sleep;
To sleep; perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sdeleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity or so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
The patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bare those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and movement
With this regard there currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action --Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
As the left stage
gets illuminated back
Boy1 (to
Old man): What does it mean?
Old man: It means you
become a philosophic dialectic
And often your action is impeded by your logic.
Girl2:
(touches the quill) after
a flourish the scene from Merchant of Venice Act IV Scene 1 is enacted:
“Portia: The
quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But the mercy is above this sceptred sway
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
An earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,
And that the same player doth teach us all to
render
The deeds of mercy.
And when the light
are restored to the left stage the old man looks at Girl2 and says:
Old man: Honey!
It means you love fair play
As naturally as a bee honey.
As Boy2 touches the quill there will be flourish
and the following from Julius Caeser Act III Scene 2 when Brutus tries to
defend his action is enacted:
“Brutus: Be
patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers!
hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may
hear:
believe me for mine honour, and have respect to
mine honour,
that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom,
and awake your senses, that you may the better
judge.
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend
of Caeser’s,
to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caeser was no
less than his.
If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against
Caeser,
this is my answer:
Not that I loved Caeser less, but I loved Rome
more.
Had you rather Caeser were living, and die all
slaves,
than that the Caeser were dead, to live all free
men?
As Caeser loved me, I weep for him; as he
was fortunate, I rejoice at it;
as he was valiant, I honour him;
but as he was ambitious, I slew him.
There is tears for his love;
joy for his fortune;
honour for his valour;
and death for his ambition.
Who is here so base, that he
would be a bondman?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude, that would not be a Roman?
If any, speak. for him have I offended.
Who is here so vile, that will not love his
country?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.
I pause for a reply.
(Behind
the stage)
Chorus: None, Brutus, none.
Brutus:
Then none have I offended.
I have done no more to Caeser
than you shall do to Brutus.
The question of his death
was enrolled in the capitol;
his glory not extenuated,
wherein he was worthy,
nor his offences enforced, for which
he suffered death.
{Enter Antony and others, with Caeser’s body}
Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony:
Who, though he had no hand in his death,
shall receive the benefit of his dying,
a place in the commonwealth;
as which of you shall not?
With this I depart:
that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome,
I have the same dagger for myself,
when it shall please my country to need my death.”
Old man: (With
Boy 2) It means you are valiant and a good
speaker too
You can convince your detractors, as your
supporters,
With ease. But if you don’t permit passion to
overcome you,
You will not regret your action as Brutus did.
(Behind the stage:
voices of ghosts sprits and apparitions)
Chorus: What
about us?
We wafted in air ‘fore he was born
And came to life donning mantles under his pen.
We had our second lives,
When we played, danced when bestowed rare powers,
And as he met his elements,
So were we restored
Give us a chance to say our thanks
To leave our shadows along with his images.
(All the ghosts, spirits and apparitions come to
the fore stage and mingle with the characters already appeared, and all of them
sing in unison. Spirits, ghosts and apparitions stand one side and other
characters stand the other side to start with)
Song:
(Characters):
He gave us birth
He gave us breath
He gave us mirth and mantle
Spirits:
(Pointing the statue)
He gave us birth
He gave us breath
He gave us mirth and mantle
Characters: He gave us life
He made us fife
And bade us hustle and hassle
Spirits
He blessed us life
Old Man: Who taught child Shakespeare all the
stories which later become his literary corpus.
Boy 1 }
Boy 2 } Children playing rugby who accidentally
stumble upon the Oldman
Girl 1 }
Girl 2 }
Shakespearean
Characters and text
Miranda: } From The
Tempest Act I Scene II
Prospero: }
Polonius: }
From Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark Act I
Scene III
Hamlet }
Act III Scene I
Romeo: } From Romeo and Juliet Act II Scene
II
Juliet: }
Portia: } From The Merchant of Venice, Act IV
Scene I
Arragon: }
Act
II Scene IX
King Lear }
From King Lear, Act IV Scene VI and Act V Scene III
Gloucester }
Edgar }
Brutus }
From Julius Caesar Act III Scene II
Sir John Falstaff} From King Henry IV, Act V Scene
I
Cassandra }
From Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene II
And ………………Spirits, Ghosts, Apparitions, Witches,
Fairies and their ilk.
(From
the top branch of Muse
An
eerie melody sweeps through ether
Matter
springs to life for a while to amuse
And
the spirit returns, saying it doesn’t matter)
A
humble tribute to his master by a subject
On the eve
of his 400th Death Anniversary
The
Word Wiz
(Playlet)
(Note:
All text in italics other than stage directions is Shakespearean)
When the curtain
raises the fade out is on the memorial of Shakespeare. It will be in the
typical Indian fashion: The bust of the bard in ruins sitting on a high
platform, dusty and faded, wrapped in cobwebs and littered with bird droppings.
The place looks dark, desolate and remote. Foot of the platform littered with
dry leaves all over. The growth of bushes and the dust collecting over betray
that it has been abandoned for long.
From afar children
playing rugby, their cries, their calls, their shouts and hullaballoo is heard.
As the stage gets
slowly illuminated an old man enters from one end of the stage and slowly
passes by it. He stops and looks at the statue for a while putting his
hand over his eyes and then suddenly exclaims
Old man: “Oh! Me! Gee
god! What a curse!”…
(He dusts the
statue passionately with his hands and his towel and cleans the surrounds
plucking few plants from the neighbourhood.)
When I told you those myths and legends
They were just that.
But when you breathed life into ’em
On this Globe, they just walked into every home
God had summoned Light
But failed to keep his work intact.
Then came you, to complement his acquit,
It is no hyperbole, his whole, your ‘less’
dominate’.
His make withered… See you me?
While yours, walks free, steeple chasing time.
(Wind changes
direction frequently putting to nought what he had done earlier. Then on one
occasion he roars at it)
“You element! Are you in your elements?
Know you what you have been doing?
Rage as you wish elsewhere.
But here, weave as gentle not to move a feather
The Bard is resting here under.
Might be scripting a tale or two to the new
audiences.”
(The wind ceases. As
he resumes his work, children playing rugby enter chasing a ball that has come
off-the-stage. The ball hits the old man. All of them halt and put on faces of
regret. One of the boys comes forward.)
Boy1: We
are so very sorry. It was an accident.
Our playfulness over ran our propriety.
But Sir! What are you doing at this forlorn place?
Old man: It’s Easter
today
But it seems it was only yesterday.
I was sitting under that tree
When youth of your age used to flock around me
Pestering to tell them a tale each day.
Girl1: Oh! Then I get you. You’re the famed
story teller.
My granny tells many stories about you.
Where have you been all along?
Why don’t you sing us that “All the world is a
stage…”
Boy
2 (to
other boys) Boys!
It’s quits for the game.
(With the old man)
Tell us some stories.
All
Yes, we want to hear some stories.
(In
chorus): It
was long since we heard any story.
Boy
2: No, but first that song.
Old man: Music
and tales are so close to your heart, I know.
But tell me do you want the song or the tale first.
All:
We want the song
first.
(Old man sings the song ‘All the world is a
stage…’
As he begins the song, fade out will be on him.)
(As he sings the
song characters from his plays come one after another and enact the seven
stages of life. The stage is divided between the old man and the
characters and the focus will be alternating between them. When the old
man sings the line “…at first an infant, mewing and puking in the nurse’s
arms…” The scene from The Tempest Act I
Scene II is enacted when Prospero speaks to Miranda)
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and
women are players;
They have their exits and entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts, the acts
being seven ages.
At first the infant, mewing and puking in the
nurse’s arms….
(A
howling of Tempest precedes the entry of characters)
“Miranda: “(Father!)
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am; but stopped,
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding, ‘stay: not yet.’
Prospero: (Miranda!)
The hour’s now come;
The very minute bids thee open thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?
I do not think thou canst, for then thou was not
Out three years old.
Miranda:
Certainly, sir, I can.
Prospero: By
what? By any other house, or person?
Of anything the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
Miranda:
‘Tis far off;
And rather like a dream, than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?
Pros:
Thou hadst, and more, Miranda.
But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou
else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember’st aught, ere thou cam’st here,
How thou cam’st here, thou may’st.
Miranda: But
that I do not.
Prospero: Twelve
year since, Miranda, twelve year since
Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and
A prince of power.
Miranda: Sir,
are not you my father?
Prospero: Thy
mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir
A princess; no worse issued.
Miranda:
O, the heavens!
What foul play had we that we came from thence?
Or blessed wasn’t we did?
Prospero:
Both, both, my girl:
By foul play, as thou say’st, we were heaved
Thence;
But blessedly holp hither.
Miranda: My
heart bleeds
To think of the teen that I have turned you to,
Which is from my remembrance.
[Focus shifts back to
the old man. As he sings: ‘ then the whining school boy, with his satchel, and
shining morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school’ ………. the
scene from The Hamlet Act I scene III is enacted where Polonius gives
advice to his son Laertes:]
“Polonius: Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard, for
the shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing
With thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to your soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade.
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear‘t that the opposed may beware of these.
Give everyman thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and a friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all; to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!”
Old man Sings…
(As he sings “And
then the lover, sighing like furnace, with woeful ballad made to his mistress’
eyebrow” the scene from Romeo and Juliet Act II Scene II is enacted
where Romeo speaks to Juliet by her window)
“Romeo: By
a name I know not how to tell thee who I am;
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;
Had I it written, I would tear that word.
Juliet:
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound:
Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?
Romeo:
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.
Juliet:
How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb;
And the place death, considering who thou art,
Of any of my kinsman find thee here.
Romeo:
With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt;
And therefore your kinsmen are no stop to me.
Juliet:
If they do see they will murder thee.
Romeo:
Alack! There lies more peril in thine
eye
Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity
Juliet:
I would not for the world they saw thee
here,
Romeo:
I have night’s cloak to hide from
their eyes;
And but thou love me, let them find me here;
My life were better ended by their hate,
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.”
Old man: Sings
As he
sings “then a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard,
jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the babble reputation
even in the cannon’s mouth” the scene from The Merchant of Venice Act II
Scene IX when the prince of Arragon makes his bid to select the right casket is
enacted: Flourish of Cornets. Enter the Prince of Arragon, Portia, with
their retinue.)
“Portia: Behold, there stand the caskets, noble prince,
If you choose wherein I am contain’d,
Straight our nuptial rights shall be solemnised;
But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,
You must be gone from hence immediately.
Arr.
I am enjoin’d by oath to observe three things;
First, never to unfold to any one
Of the right casket, never in my life
To woo a maid in way of marriage;
Lastly,
If I do fail in the fortune of my choice,
Immediately to leave you and be gone.
Portia:
To these injunctions every one doth swear
That comes to hazard for my worthless self.
Arr:
And so have I address’d me. Fortune
now
To my heart’s hope! Gold; Silver; and base
Lead.
Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath:
You shall look fairer, ere I give or hazard
What says the golden chest? Ha! Let me see;
Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.
What many men desire! That ‘many’ may be meant
By the fool multitude, that chose by show,
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;
Which pries not the interior, but, like the
martlet,
Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
Even in the force and the road of casualty.
I will not choose what many men will desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits
And rank myself with barbarous multitudes.
Why then to thee, thy silver treasure-house;
Tell me once more what title thou dost bear:
Who chooseth me gets as much as he deserves
And well said too; for who shall go about
To cozen fortune and be honourable
Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity.
O! That estates, degrees, and offices
Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer.
How many then should cover that stand bare;
How many be commanded that command;
How much low peasantry would then be glean’d
From the true seed of honour; and how much honour
Pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times
To be new-varnish’d! Well, but to my choice:
Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.
I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,
And instantly unlock my fortune here. (He opens the
silver casket)
Portia:
Too long a pause for what you find there.
Arr:
What’s
here? The portrait of a blinking idiot,
Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.
How much unlike thou art to Portia!
How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!
Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.
Did I deserve no more than a fool’s head?
Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?”
Old
man: Sings…
(As he sings “And
then the justice, in fair round belly with capon lined, with eyes severe, and
beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays
his part” The scene from First part of King Henry IV Act V scene I is
enacted when the prince, King Henry, and others prepare for war. Sir John
Falstaff enters the stage after the following conversation:
(Off the stage)
“King: and, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture
thee,
Albeit considerations infinite
Do make it against it. No, good Worcester, no,
We love our people well; even those we love
That are misled upon your cousin’s part;
And will they take the offer of our grace,
Both he and they and you, yea, every man
Shall be my friend again, and I will be his.
So tell your cousin, and bring me word
What he will do; but if he will not yield,
Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,
And they shall do their office. So be gone:
We will not now be troubled with reply;
We offer fair, take it advisedly.
Prince: It will not be accepted, on my life.
The Douglas and Hotspur both together
Are confident against the world in arms.
King:
Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;
For, on their answer, will we set on them;
And God befriend us, as our case is just!
Falstaff:
Hal, if thou see me down in the battle,
And bestride me, so ‘tis a point of friendship.
Prince:
Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship.
Say thy prayers, and farewell.
Falstaff:
I would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well.
Prince:
Why, thou owest God a death.”
(Falstaff enters fore stage)
Falstaff:
‘Tis not due yet: I would be loath to pay him before
His day. What need I be so forward with him
that calls not
On me? Well,‘tis no matter; honour pricks me
on. Yea,
But how if honour prick me off when I come on? How
then?
Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an
arm? No. Or take
Away the grief of the wound? No. Honour
hath no skill in
Surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is
that
Word honour? Air. A trim
reckoning! Who hath it? He that
Died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it?
No. Doth he hear it?
No. Is it insensible then? Yes, to the
dead. But will it not
Live with the living? No. Why?
Detraction will not suffer it.
Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere
scutcheon; and so
Ends my catechism.”
Old
man: Sings:
(As he
sings “The sixth stage shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, his youthful hose well saved, a
world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again
toward childish tremble, pipes and whistles in his sounds. the following
scene from King Lear Act IV Scene VI is enacted:
“Lear:
No, they
cannot touch me for coining; I am the king myself.
Edgar: O thou side-piercing sight!
Lear: Nature’s above art in that respect.
There’s your press-money. That fellow handles
his bow like a crow-keeper:
draw me a clothier’s yard. Look, look! a
mouse.
Peace, peace! this piece of toasted cheese will
do’t.
There’s my gauntlet; I will prove it on a
giant.
Bring up the brown bills. O! well flown,
bird;
i’ the clout, i’ the clout: hewgh! Give the
word.
Edgar: Sweet marjoram.
Lear:
Pass.
Glou.
I
know that voice.
Lear. Ha! Goneril, with a white beard! They
flattered me like a dog, and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the
black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said!
‘Ay’ and ‘no’ too was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once
and the wind to make me chatter, when the thunder would not peace at my
bidding, there I found ’em , there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not
men o’ their words: they told me I was everything;‘t is a lie, I am not
ague-proof.
Glou.
The trick of the voice I do well remember:
Is’t not the king?
Lear.
Ay, every
inch a king:
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?
Adultery?
Thou shall not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to‘t, and the small guilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive; for Glouster’s bastard son
Was kinder to his father than my daughters
Got ‘tween the lawful sheets.
To‘t, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.
Behold yond simpering dame,
Whose face between her forks presageth snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name;
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to‘t
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs.
Though women all above:
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiend’s:
There’s hell, there’s darkness, there’s the
sulphurous pit,
Burning, scalding, stench, consumption; fie, fie,
fie!
Pah! pah! give me an ounce of civet, good
apothecary,
To sweeten my imagination: there’s money for thee.
Glou.
O! Let me
kiss that hand.
Lear
Let me
wipe it first; it smells of mortality.
Glou.
O ruin’d piece
of nature! This great world
Shall so wear out to nought. Dost thou know
me?
Lear.
I remember
thine eyes well enough. Dost thou sqiny at me?
No, do thy worst, blind cupid; I will not
love. Read thou this
Challenge; mark but the penning of it.
Glou.
Were all
thy letters suns, I could not see.
Edgar. (Aside):
I would not take this from report; it is,
And my heart breaks at it.
Lear.
Read.
Glou.
What! with the case of eyes?
Lear
O, ho! Are you there
with me? No eyes in your head,
Nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in
a heavy case,
Our purse in a light: yet you see how this world
goes.
Glou.
I see it feelingly.
Lear
What! Art mad? A man may see how the world goes
With no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how
yond justice
Rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine
ear: change
Places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice,
which is the
Thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at
a beggar?
Glou.
Ay, sir.
Lear
And the creature run from the cur?
There you might’st behold the great image of
authority;
A dog’s obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own
back;
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the
cozener.
Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin
with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags; a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none, I say, none; I‘ll able ’em:
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass
eyes;
And like scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not. Now, now,
now, now;
Pull off my boots; harder, harder; so.
Edgar.
(Aside) O! Matter and impertinency mix’d; Reason in madness.
Lear
If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes;
I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester;
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither;
Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air
We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.
Glou.
Alack, alack the day!
Lear
Wwhen we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools. This a good
block!
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt; I‘ll put‘t in proof,
And when I have stol’n upon these sons-in-law,
Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
Enter a Gentleman, with attendants.
Gent.
O! Here he is; lay hand upon him.
Sir, your most dear daughter—
Lear
No rescue?
What! a prisoner? I am even the natural fool
Of fortune. Use me well; you shall
have ransom.
Let me have surgeons; I am cut to the brains.
Gent.
You shall have anything.
Lear
No
seconds? all myself?
Why this would make a man a man of salt,
To use his eyes for garden water-pots
Ay, and laying autumn’s dust.
Gent.
Good sir,–
Lear:
I will die
bravely, like a smug bridegroom. What!
I will be jovial; come, come; I am the king,
My masters, know you that?
Gent.
You are a
royal one, and we obey you.
Lear
Then
there’s life in‘t. Nay, an you get it,
You shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa,
sa. (Exit: Lear)”
Old man Sings:
(As he sings “Last
scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness
and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” the
scene from King Lear Act V Scene III is enacted:
“Lear:
(With Cordelia in his
arms)
Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! You are men
of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heavens vault should crack. She’s gone
for ever.
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.
This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her; now she’s gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! Stay a little. Ha!
What is’t though say’st! Her voice was ever
soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in the woman.
I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Did not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip; I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me.
Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you
straight.
And my poor fool is hang’d ! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no
more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you undo this button; thank you, sir
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!
(Dies)
The
focus shifts back to the old man
Boy1
Wah! Wah!
Boy2
Excellent! Excellent! Your song is excellent!
Old man: But it is
not mine. It is his (pointing to the statue)
Who made all this world his stage,
All languages, tongues, and dialects his liege,
And nature which was so proud of its prowess
In creating characters at its will and fancy
Was still blinking its eyes in wonder at a Portia,
A Cordelia, a Juliet, an Ophelia or a Lucrece.
When his villains speak, they echo every man in no
man
And when his heroes act, they seem down to earth.
The gamut of his writing is not to blare his genius
But to sum up: we differ merely from barriers
without
When he wrought passions, they were neither random
Nor were they native to a soil, race or colour.
He chartered the scape of whole human emotions
And collected every single spec worth its name
Only to reflect like a faithful looking glass
For men to look-in, peruse, amend, and rejoice.
He never takes sides with good or evil
Nor hies behind his rolls just to preach a sermon
He bares the human contradictions, dilemmas, and
disciplines
Without a hint of contrivance, from a natural flow
of events.
We wail, we laugh, we play, get hurt, and simper
As he conjures up events from our very life
As the emotion dissipates it leaves no stains
But a sweet lingering aroma lasting our life time.
Boy1
What is his name?
Old man: Didn’t you
ever hear any stories
From your grannies at the fire place?
Boy2
My grand pa was the best story
teller.
He would spin a story in a trice.
Girl1
My grand ma was even better.
Never was her story treasure empty.
Girl2
My mother tells me a story at bedtime
But she never repeats herself any time
Did you ever hear about the merchant
Who pawned himself for his friend’s love?
Boy1
Do you know about the king
Who tested the loyalties of his offspring?
Girl1
That is a household story
But have you ever heard how to tame a shrew?
Boy2
My grandsire tells exotic
stories
About dreams, fantasies and what not.
All
(Simultaneously): My grand pa
is great,
No, my granny is great
No, my mother is great,
No my grandsire is great.
Old man: But do you know
where they got these stories from?
Boy2:
O, I forgot. Was it Shake…. Something?
Old man: Say it
properly. William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon.
(Enter a soldier)
Soldier:
Why spoil their youth with fiction and fancy tales?
Tell them about history, about war and bravery.
Old man: Brave
soldier! Good luck to thee.
But fiction is no easy meat to cook, prithee
True. You must wage war
Against no-law, no-custom, and no-scruple.
But if wars, laws and vengeance
Could discipline, chastise and correct people
We wouldn’t have had these any more.
Good and evil, the hemispheres of character
Wax and wane, by turns, at one another’s expense.
Fiction gives vent to the heroics within
And resurrects to life the springs drying up in
psyche.
History is a recipe, a decocture from the past
Filtering fact from fiction, take whit by whit.
It is a lamp, not the spade that helps clear your
way
And our duty is just that, ‘fore we pass away.
Soldier:
Might be so. But, I fear your fiction
Dries up the heroics at that.
Reason, no doubt, seasons our emotion
But an excess of it inhibits our action.
Fancy is a flight, no one wants to get down
The wings of crazy ideas and exotic things
The world looks oblong, flat and perplexing.
History, on the contrary, is a record of our kin
Our lives, a reliving of theirs, events scattered
though.
We make the same mistakes, feel same passions
Witness mutely the events... momentary and
momentous
Silly and serious, brazen and civil, timorous and
trepid
We inherit their fate and fortunes alike.
Old man: So, by
consequence,
History and fiction stand on the same pedestal.
Soldier: But
with some knowledge and the will to work our way,
We can steer thro’ rough waters to possible safer
shores.
Old man: Isn’t life’s
mirth or misery a chance?
Soldier:
Doesn’t bravery take the seat of chance?
If the world were surfeit of geniuses and giants
Wouldn’t actions end before they incubate in mind?
Action is the spice of thought
And if it were absent, life reduces to inanimate.
History whets action by comparison.
Old man: Life
imagined through history is fancy.
But fiction nearer to life is history.
I sow these seminal minds
With the viable seeds of fiction
That when they are up against a Brutus
They play Mark Antony
And when they are up against Hotspurs
They play the Henries.
Children: But we want
to hear the tales you said you told him
(They point
towards the statue)
Old man: Didn’t you
hear the legend
That he who touches his quill
Shall see before him, his matter, making a drill
Girl1
Then let me chance to touch it first
To see in me the best or the worst.
(She attempts to
touch the quill and there will be a sudden flourish and the whole stage becomes
dark. Slowly the right stage gets illuminated and the following scene
from Troilus and Cressida, Act II Scene 2 will be enacted where Cassandra, a
prophetess, comes running on to the stage)
Cassandra: “Cry, Trojans, cry! Lend me ten thousand eyes.
And I will fill them
with prophetic tears.
Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,
Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,
Add to my clamours! Let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry! Practise your eye with tears!
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our fire brand brother, Paris, burn us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen and a woe!
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or let Helen go. (Exit)”
Left
stage gets illuminated and the girl asks in all innocence
Girl1
What does it mean?
Old man: Baby, you are! Innocent
to the core.
As elements play their role,
They please and frighten your soul.
You see things that others can’t think
And when you prophesise the world takes no wink
Boy1 Let
me try then.
(There will be a sudden flourish and the whole
stage becomes dark. Slowly the right stage gets illuminated and the
following scene from Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, Act III Scene 1 is enacted
where Hamlet, the prince comes on to the stage)
Hamlet: “To
be, or not to be: that is the question;
Whether‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to takes arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to
sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartaches and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d, To die, to sleep;
To sleep; perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sdeleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity or so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
The patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bare those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and movement
With this regard there currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action --Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
As the left stage
gets illuminated back
Boy1 (to
Old man): What does it mean?
Old man: It means you
become a philosophic dialectic
And often your action is impeded by your logic.
Girl2:
(touches the quill) after
a flourish the scene from Merchant of Venice Act IV Scene 1 is enacted:
“Portia: The
quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But the mercy is above this sceptred sway
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
An earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,
And that the same player doth teach us all to
render
The deeds of mercy.
And when the light
are restored to the left stage the old man looks at Girl2 and says:
Old man: Honey!
It means you love fair play
As naturally as a bee honey.
As Boy2 touches the quill there will be flourish
and the following from Julius Caeser Act III Scene 2 when Brutus tries to
defend his action is enacted:
“Brutus: Be
patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers!
hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may
hear:
believe me for mine honour, and have respect to
mine honour,
that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom,
and awake your senses, that you may the better
judge.
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend
of Caeser’s,
to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caeser was no
less than his.
If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against
Caeser,
this is my answer:
Not that I loved Caeser less, but I loved Rome
more.
Had you rather Caeser were living, and die all
slaves,
than that the Caeser were dead, to live all free
men?
As Caeser loved me, I weep for him; as he
was fortunate, I rejoice at it;
as he was valiant, I honour him;
but as he was ambitious, I slew him.
There is tears for his love;
joy for his fortune;
honour for his valour;
and death for his ambition.
Who is here so base, that he
would be a bondman?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude, that would not be a Roman?
If any, speak. for him have I offended.
Who is here so vile, that will not love his
country?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.
I pause for a reply.
(Behind
the stage)
Chorus: None, Brutus, none.
Brutus:
Then none have I offended.
I have done no more to Caeser
than you shall do to Brutus.
The question of his death
was enrolled in the capitol;
his glory not extenuated,
wherein he was worthy,
nor his offences enforced, for which
he suffered death.
{Enter Antony and others, with Caeser’s body}
Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony:
Who, though he had no hand in his death,
shall receive the benefit of his dying,
a place in the commonwealth;
as which of you shall not?
With this I depart:
that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome,
I have the same dagger for myself,
when it shall please my country to need my death.”
Old man: (With
Boy 2) It means you are valiant and a good
speaker too
You can convince your detractors, as your
supporters,
With ease. But if you don’t permit passion to
overcome you,
You will not regret your action as Brutus did.
(Behind the stage:
voices of ghosts sprits and apparitions)
Chorus: What
about us?
We wafted in air ‘fore he was born
And came to life donning mantles under his pen.
We had our second lives,
When we played, danced when bestowed rare powers,
And as he met his elements,
So were we restored
Give us a chance to say our thanks
To leave our shadows along with his images.
(All the ghosts, spirits and apparitions come to
the fore stage and mingle with the characters already appeared, and all of them
sing in unison. Spirits, ghosts and apparitions stand one side and other
characters stand the other side to start with)
Song:
(Characters):
He gave us birth
He gave us breath
He gave us mirth and mantle
Spirits:
(Pointing the statue)
He gave us birth
He gave us breath
He gave us mirth and mantle
Characters: He gave us life
He made us fife
And bade us hustle and hassle
Spirits
He blessed us life
He blessed us fife
And bestowed hoary story
All
(Together and severally):
Blessed I am
And blessed you are
To notch this ion from eon
O, Bard of Avon!
O, Lord of heaven!
Let play this play-let on and on.
Amen!
(Curtain comes down)
***
He blessed us fife
And bestowed hoary story
All
(Together and severally):
Blessed I am
And blessed you are
To notch this ion from eon
O, Bard of Avon!
O, Lord of heaven!
Let play this play-let on and on.
Amen!
(Curtain comes down)
***
