- Announcer: Funding for APT's "Out of the Woods"
is provided by Boardman Clark Law Firm,
Arcadia Books, Dane Arts, Nancy A. McDaniel,
Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin,
Orange Tree Imports, Wilson Creek Pottery,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
[bird squawking]
[bugs buzzing]
[light music]
- This cannot be right.
Did I, am I, am I?
Okay, okay.
[gentle music]
- Uh, can you tell me if the lens is scratched
or is that my glasses?
- Get off the camera.
You gotta get off. - I know that's the camera.
- Son, get off the camera. - I'm about to win!
[woman humming]
- I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids, love 'em.
- Oh, I have a better idea. - Get off of me.
- Hey, Jimmy.
[man groaning] [muffled talking]
Jimmy, are you frozen?
- Places.
- Man: I'm here, I'm here, coming.
- Places, everyone.
This is places.
[light dramatic music]
- I really gotta pee.
- Oh, what's up, Marcus?
How you doing?
- Good luck, everybody.
[light music]
[bird squawking]
*
- Brenda: Hello everybody, hello, hello.
Hello, it's our last reading.
Welcome, welcome thank you so much for joining us tonight.
This is our last in our series of six readings
for our "Out of the Woods" series,
and it's been such an amazing adventure for all of us.
And here at APT to see all of you
pile on the Zoom on Sunday night.
We are so grateful, so, so much gratitude. The time
when we wish we were just with you.
We're used to seeing a thousand of you out in the house
in the theater up the hill, but when we can't be together,
this has been such remedy for our hearts
and to be in the room with the actors and the artists
creating, has just been a gift, so thank you.
Thank you for responding so positively.
And for being with us. And the adventure continues,
because tonight we have a world premiere of a new play
and you are here to watch it, so thank you very much.
I think that the crowd's pretty big tonight,
so thank you so much for being here.
I wanna make sure I say all the thank yous to everyone.
PBS Wisconsin, who has partnered with us
throughout this entire process and been incredibly patient
and supportive, they are going to be having these up
and it started on Friday night at 7:00 pm.
We premiered our first of the six readings
and it will be up, that is the "Chekhov One Acts" started
on Friday night, and every Friday night
for the next five more Fridays, we will be premiering
another reading, and those will stay up online
for you to see if you'd like.
It was a big success, they had a Face, uh Facebook live,
performance on Friday night, 7:00 pm. They'll do the
same thing this coming week as well.
So please, if you haven't seen the other pieces
or you'd like to see them again, go online,
please share that link with your friends.
We want our work to be shared
and enjoyed by everyone, so I appreciate that.
I need to shout out to Jack Whaley and Chris Corkery,
the first opening video that you saw of all the actors
getting ready, which was how it felt every day,
trying to get ready for these readings.
And I want to thank those guys for creating that video.
They did that by themselves
in about two days, and I appreciate you all for doing that,
Chris Corkery and Jack Whaley.
I also want to make sure I say thank you to our staff.
It's been a really hard time at APT,
with so much uncertainty and when we had this idea
eight weeks ago and we just came up with it and decided
to do it, the staff at APT is the best and the hardest
working and they say yes all the time.
And I wanna make sure I say thank you
to Carrie Van Hallgren, to Sara Young, Michael Broh,
Cari Stebbins, the entire direct report team,
the board of directors, just for saying yes,
the devo department, the development department,
thank you so much, marketing, Hannah and Jess thank you.
You guys are simply all the best and if I missed
someone I apologize.
Sharon Moshure, our IT person.
Thank you so much, Sharon.
I wanna make sure I say thank you to Jake Penner,
the artistic associate here at APT and Carey Cannon,
my artistic associate, my associate artistic director
and dear friend keeps me sane.
Thank you, Carey.
I'd like to say thank you to the stage management crew
who worked double time.
We thought June on the Hill was hard.
You should try June on Zoom when you're a stage manager.
And I wanna say thank you to Jacki Singleton
and Evelyn Matten for all of your diligent expertise
when you were not experts and you are now,
so thank you so much for that.
Last but not least, I wanna make sure I thank our sponsors.
Our season sponsors are remarkable
friends and stewards of APT.
And when we had to cancel the season,
they stayed with us and, and continued to support us.
And I wanna make sure I say thank you to them personally,
Stephen and Laurel Brown Foundation, Dave and Sherry Caves,
JJJ Productions, Kasieta Legal Group,
Sherry and Rick Lundell, Ann and Fred Moore, Nelson-Jameson
Allison and Dale Smith, Steve Brown Apartments,
the Mr. and Mrs. CJ Williams Storage Foundation, and US Bank.
Thank you, thank you, thank you
couldn't do it without you clearly.
And finally to say thank you to the artists,
who jumped in on this project.
I wanna say thank you to Jim DeVita for writing it,
Tim Ocel for directing.
I wanna thank the cast for jumping in on this and making it
as beautiful, this beautiful night for everyone.
You are simply the best, appreciate you.
So and Greg Coffin for your gorgeous music tonight
and Eva Breneman for voice and text coaching
I appreciate you.
All right, without further ado, please enjoy tonight's world
premiere of James DeVita's An Improbable Fiction.
* [bright upbeat music]
- NARRATOR: [in British accent] "An Improbable Fiction" by James DeVita.
Act One.
*
The play opens in the Boar's Head Tavern
in Eastcheap, London.
It is the early 1600's during the time of the plague.
It is evening.
There is an outside door to the tavern which opens inward.
Inside, we see a bar, a table, and some chairs.
At the back of the room is a short run of stairs
which lead up to a railed landing,
off of which there is a bedchamber.
Mistress Quickly, the owner of the inn,
is behind the bar lazily cleaning,
but keeping a watchful eye on Sir John Falstaff
who is sitting in a chair,
drumming his fingers on the table,
staring off.
*
* Oh Mistress mine,
Where are you roaming *
* Oh stay in here
* Your true love's coming
* Banish not this old heart so
* Trip no further, pretty sweeting *
* Journey's end in lovers meeting *
* Every wise man's son doth know *
[loud and unrestrained sigh of satisfaction]
- QUICKLY: Excellent good, i' faith.
- FALSTAFF: Time.
- QUICKLY: But new struck nine.
- FALSTAFF: [sighs loudly] Ay me, sweet Nell,
sad hours seem long.
A pox o' the plague!
What, shall we have no more cakes and ale!?
No laughter?
No love?
Faith, I can still cut a capon
and the mutton to it!
Now, come, come!
Shall we raise the night-owl, love? [Falstaff laughs]
- QUICKLY: Careful now, Sir John.
- FALSTAFF: Shall we chime the chimes of midnight
and make the welkin dance!?
- QUICKLY: Oh, Sir John! Sir John!
- NARRATOR: They dance.
- FALSTAFF: [sings] * There dwelt a man in London town *
* of reputation great with Fame *
* He took to wife a lovely lass *
* Mine Hostess was she called by name *
* A woman fair and true was she *
- QUICKLY: Oh, sir. [laughs]
- FALSTAFF: [sings] * Lady, lady, lady!
* So give me drink, ye, give me song, *
* Lady, Lady, Lady!
* A merry heart lives hap'ly long! *
* Lady Love!
- NARRATOR: The tavern door suddenly opens
and a Messenger rushes in.
- MESSENGER: Pardon me, my lord. - FALSTAFF: Cease!
- MESSENGER: But... - FALSTAFF: Halt!
- MESSENGER: But...
- FALSTAFF: Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.
- MESSENGER: But there's a...
- FALSTAFF: Draw thy speech to a close,
or thus will I draw and quarter thee.
- NARRATOR: Sir John draws his sword.
- FALSTAFF: Very well then, approach.
No, no, no, near enough.
- Who art thou?
- MESSENGER: Who art I?
- FALSTAFF: 'Tis I asked you.
- MESSENGER: Who art I.
- FALSTAFF: By heavens, he echoes me.
Go to, go to, you are a saucy boy.
Come, villain, thy place, thy position, character, role,
capacity-- divulge, impart, speak!
- MESSENGER: I...uh, I...
- FALSTAFF: Oh, by the mass, I'd hoped for a battle of wits,
yet I see you are clearly unarmed.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff puts his sword away.
- FALSTAFF: Well, convey, sir; what's your will?
- MESSENGER: I've a message for ye, sir.
- FALSTAFF: From whom?
- MESSENGER: The Author.
- FALSTAFF: Indeed, I smell it, upon my life.
Thou hast a touch of the Stratford-ian about thee
or I am no two-legged creature.
From which of William's pages didst thou crawl forth?
- MESSENGER: My lord?
- FALSTAFF: Thou comest to use thy tongue;
thy story quickly.
- MESSENGER: Oh, I don't have a story.
I just bring the news from abroad.
- FALSTAFF: Indeed, yes; but who art thou?
- MESSENGER: Who do you want me to be?
- FALSTAFF: Dost thou mock me, villain?
- QUICKLY: He means the play, lad,
what play are you from?
- MESSENGER: Oh. [laughs]
Well, uh, all of 'em, actually.
You don't know me, do you?
- FALSTAFF: Damned if I do, thou surly-mouthed,
beetle-headed, flap-eared knave.
Never in my life have I spied the likes of you.
- MESSENGER: Ay, I know.
Ye never notice me.
I've watched ye all your life, sir,
but ye've never said a word to me.
- FALSTAFF: I never--?
Why, thou misbegotten bat-fowling bootlicker...
who are you, goodman boy?
Thy name.
- MESSENGER: Don't 'ave one, sir; not in particular, that is.
- FALSTAFF: Elucidate, brazen-face!
- MESSENGER: Well, uh, you may have heard of me.
I'm actually pretty well known throughout the canon
as 'The Messenger'.
THE Messenger, mind you, not just one of, you know,
those every-day messengers.
It's a very important character.
Without those messages, you know, nothin' happens.
I am nuthin' if not plot.
I am also, at times, uh, Soldier, Servant, Gentleman,
Officer, Shepherd, Sentry, Sailor, Citizen, Page,
Serving Man, Clown, Musician, Eunuch, and other Attendants.
- FALSTAFF: Extensive.
Unremarkable, but extensive.
Now come, boy, your message now relate.
Is it about the Prince?
- MESSENGER: Nay, my lord.
The Privy Council's passed a new decree, sir,
clapped up 'n down Park Street as far as Gatehouse Square.
The playhouses stay closed
till the numbers rise not above thirty a week.
- QUICKLY: But 'tis posted forty.
- MESSENGER: 'Tis thirty, now, madam;
the Lord Mayor 'imself made the proclamation.
- FALSTAFF: Death and damnation!!
- MESSENGER: The entire canon is closed, sir.
They've locked the doors o' The Globe, The Rose, The Curtain,
Swan, Blackfriars, The Fortune, all of 'em sealed tight as oak.
- FALSTAFF: And what of Marlowe's characters?
Webster's and Middleton's?
My fellow fustilarians.
Wander any of them this way?
- QUICKLY: I'll 'ave none o' Webster's characters
in my place!
- FALSTAFF: Peace, I pray you!
- MESSENGER: I know not about all of 'em, sir,
but Marlowe's characters,
and quite a few o' master Shakespeare's,
'ave been passin' the time over at Mistress Bull's house
in Deptford.
- QUICKLY: And Master Shakespeare?
- MESSENGER: Oh, he's shut up over at his place
on Silver Street.
Runnin' about like a madman, he is, scroungin' paper, ink.
He's got a new play ticklin' his brain,
something on a heath somewhere.
- FALSTAFF: How fares great Tamburlaine?
Where's lies Volpone?
What has become of Bardolph and Master Shallow?
ZOUNDS!
I am barren and bereft of the friends,
and you may know by my size
that I require a like quantity of companions.
It's not the damn plague will kill me; it's the solitude.
Where the hell is Hal!? - QUICKLY: Sir John, don't.
- FALSTAFF: Banished I am of my Harry's company, and why?
- QUICKLY: John!
- FALSTAFF: Tell me that, Mistress!
You tell me that!
- QUICKLY: Best not to dwell upon such things.
- FALSTAFF: I'll dwell upon this theme until my eyelids
no longer wag!
- QUICKLY: Good sir, confine thyself a little!
- FALSTAFF: I'll confine myself no finer than I am!
- QUICKLY: Come, come, and sit you down,
you shall not budge.
- FALSTAFF: I cry you mercy.
I am parched for companionship, which pains me greater than.
Tell me, lad...
the other characters, do, do they ask after me?
- MESSENGER: Oh, indeed they do, sir, never fear that.
Ay, if there was ever a man to last out a siege like this with,
it'd be Sir John Falstaff, that's what they say:
Parson Hugh and Pistol, Poins, Peter Simple.
- FALSTAFF: Know you their whereabouts?
- MESSENGER: Indeed, sir, I was tryin' to tell ye before:
the whole lot of 'em stayin' at Mistress Bull's.
- FALSTAFF: What the devil do they all in Deptford!?
Are we not consanguineous!?
Nearly!
Our house is not yet sealed!
- MESSENGER: No, it's not that, sir; marry,
they closed the bridge down at Bankside,
and Master Marlowe can't get out of Deptford either.
He stays at Mistress Bull's now;
and he's been usin' his time there
to revise Tamburlaine a little bit, and, well,
the others are all stickin' around to see how he turns out.
- FALSTAFF: Blasts and fogs upon it!
I need no revisions!
The Merry Wives and I
are most obscenely and courageously prepared;
the children are rehearsed and ready,
driving me insane,
and even Master Ford is on the cheer about it.
Is there no place where the players might perform?
A courtyard?
Cranny?
Why a brace of barrel-heads and a few oaken boards
were all the actors needed in my day.
- MESSENGER: There's nowhere to gather here, Sir John;
it's decreed 'n posted.
Every theater is closed,
streets are almost empty;
there's nary a physician to be found,
and but a few apothecary.
- QUICKLY: Winters not gone yet if the wild geese fly that way.
- MESSENGER: I do have some good news, though!
- FALSTAFF: Oh, say you?
- QUICKLY: Aye?
- MESSENGER: Master Shakespeare wants to take Merry Wives
out on tour.
- FALSTAFF: Oh, ye gods.
- MESSENGER: Out in the provinces, away from the crowds,
he might still be able to get a play up.
The horses are all dead, but it's only a three-day walk.
- FALSTAFF: On the hoof, say ye?!
- MESSENGER: Ay.
- FALSTAFF: I'd rather be set quick i' the earth
and bowled to death with turnips.
- MESSENGER: Well.
- FALSTAFF: I abhor touring!
Three days walk, indeed.
Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot
to a man of my kidney.
'Sblood, I'll not have my flesh borne so far afoot for
all the coin in the king's exchequer.
Let William write some other character into a buck-basket
and mark how they like it!
There's not another character in the canon t'would suffer it.
- MESSENGER: Master Shakespeare's meetin'
with the Mayor to try 'n get a license.
He's not a penny left, sir,
and nothing comin' in on account of the closures.
- FALSTAFF: Tour and be hanged!
- MESSENGER: The rent is due, my lord;
the actors have to eat, they've no place to sleep.
- FALSTAFF: Actors never needed food or sleep before;
Just a crowd, an open space, and words!
- MESSENGER: There are no crowds allowed, sir!
- FALSTAFF: ZOUNDS!
- MESSENGER: We might lose the theater, Sir John.
- FALSTAFF: The Globe.
Our wooden O.
- MESSENGER: Ay, sir.
It's that bad.
Something's got to be done.
- FALSTAFF: Unless we have the Globe in which to sing,
there is no music in the nightingale;
If we lose the world of stage on which we play,
There is no world for us to look upon;
It is our essence.
Of course.
Of course, I'll do the tour.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff moves off and pours himself a drink.
- QUICKLY: Is it true, son?
About the Globe?
- MESSENGER: I'm afraid so, mum.
- QUICKLY: How do you know all this?
- MESSENGER: I'm the messenger.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff kicks a chair
into the corner of the room.
- QUICKLY: Now, now, Sir John, keep ye heart high.
The theater will outlast this blasted plague.
- FALSTAFF: Yea, but will I?
- QUICKLY: We've been through hard times before, love.
- FALSTAFF: Never like this.
Never, never, never, never, never.
- QUICKLY: Come now, my melancholy knight.
Let us embrace adversity bravely, eh?
Like smug newlyweds. - [Falstaff chuckles]
- Ay, there's my Sir John.
We'll ne'er wail our losses, but seek their remedies.
- MESSENGER: Ay, 'n heaven help us that way.
- QUICKLY: Look not to the heavens, lad, nor the crown.
We've to help ourselves now, remember that.
They care none for us, the great folk, never 'ave.
- FALSTAFF: Remember that, boy.
- QUICKLY: Heartless, is what they are.
Heartless.
- MESSENGER: They're all leavin' the city--
the court 'n judges, magistrates-- the lot of 'em.
- FALSTAFF: Well, of course they are, the rogues.
Damn their eyes!
A stoup of wine, say I, and LIVE!
Come, lad, thou lack'st a cup of canary.
- MESSENGER: Uh, thank you, no.
- FALSTAFF: Pourquoi, my boy?
Wherefore should these joys be forsworn?
- MESSENGER: Oh, I uh, I just don't... no.
Thank you, though.
- FALSTAFF: Lack of experience, lad.
I will instruct thee.
Ah!
A plague o' the pox!
Now come, my Muse!
Let's sing us a bawdy song 'n be merry!
[sings] * And let me the cannikin, clink, clink! *
* And let me the cannikin, clink! *
- * A soldier's a man,
- * Man' life's but a span,
* Why then let a soldier drink! *
- Clink!
Ha, ha!
- NARRATOR: The front door of the tavern swings open,
and Othello is standing there.
He is dressed for battle, a weapon at his side.
- FALSTAFF: How fared you, General?
- QUICKLY: Was she at Emilia's?
- OTHELLO: No.
- NARRATOR: Othello slams the door shut.
- OTHELLO: Back she has been taken to her father's
Till this pestilence is passed.
He will not allow me the house.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff draws his sword.
- FALSTAFF: By heavens he shall allow thee,
or I'll so
Carbonado his shanks!
- OTHELLO: Nay, nay, put up your sword, Sir John!
Believe me, were I once to stir, or did but lift
This arm, the best of them should sink in my rebuke.
But, enough of this.
- NARRATOR: Othello takes off his sword-belt
and places it on the bar.
Mistress Quickly pours him a drink.
- QUICKLY: I never did like that Brabantio;
A man who hates upon no better ground
But that he hates.
- OTHELLO: Let him do his spite.
My time will come.
- NARRATOR: Othello takes his drink.
He picks up a deck of playing cards off the bar
and joins Falstaff at the table.
- OTHELLO: Come, sir.
Shall we hazard a game
To pass the time e're I must leave.
- FALSTAFF: Well, to speak true, I prefer to dice.
- OTHELLO: Nay, nay, I know of thy dicing, Sir John.
- FALSTAFF: Ah, very well then, toss a hand.
- NARRATOR: Othello begins shuffling the cards.
- FALSTAFF: Oh say, now, what news of the Ottoman fleet?
Have ye any work at hand?
- OTHELLO: Othello's occupation's gone.
- FALSTAFF: I am sorry to hear this.
- NARRATOR: The Messenger, who has gone unnoticed by Othello,
steps forward.
- MESSENGER: Um, excuse me, sir?
General?
- NARRATOR: Othello quickly rises.
- OTHELLO: How now, what news abroad?
Some business of the state?
- MESSENGER: Well, actually, sir...
- OTHELLO: The Duke's in council and our noble self
Is sent for, I am sure.
- NARRATOR: Othello hurries to the bar and grabs up his sword,
ready to leave. - MESSENGER: Uh, no, no, sir.
That's not... Sir! - OTHELLO: Yes?
- MESSENGER: Um, that's, that's not the news, sir.
- OTHELLO: No?
- MESSENGER: No.
There is no news today.
Sir.
For you.
That's the news.
- OTHELLO: My most potent, grave, and reverend signors,
They send no word for me?
- MESSENGER: Uh, not that I know of.
- OTHELLO: Goats and monkeys!
- NARRATOR: Othello slams his sword-belt down on the table.
- OTHELLO: Well, what is the matter, then?
Speak.
- MESSENGER: It's just that, um, well,
ye' dropped this over by the bar, sir.
- OTHELLO: Gentle heavens.
- NARRATOR: The Messenger holds out a silk handkerchief
spotted with strawberries, which he hands to Othello.
- OTHELLO: I thank you.
This handkerchief did an Egyptian
To my mother give;
it is bewitched:
A sibyl that had numbered in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sewed the work;
The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk.
My mother told me, that while I kept it,
'Twould bring good health and fortune of the Gods.
She dying, gave it me.
To lose it were such perdition
as nothing else could match;
chaos would come again.
- MESSENGER: Well, better 'ang on to it a little tighter then, eh?
Ha, ha. - OTHELLO: HA! ?
Wherefore? - MESSENGER: Sir?
- OTHELLO: Say'st thou?! - MESSENGER: Sorry?
- OTHELLO: Dost laugh at me?!
- MESSENGER: Why, I, no, sir, no!
I was just makin' a joke, sir.
- OTHELLO: Thinks thou I am such stuff as jokes are made of?!
- MESSENGER: Why, no, no, my lord!
- QUICKLY: He's just a boy, my lord!
- FALSTAFF: Come, good sir!
- NARRATOR: Falstaff walks Othello to the table
and sits with him.
- OTHELLO: I swear, 'tis better to be much abused
Than but to know it a little.
Boy.
Approach.
Forgive me my wrath; 'tis an old wound of mine.
I have known thee e're now, have I not?
- MESSENGER: Ay, sir.
- OTHELLO: Where?
- MESSENGER: Cyprus, sir.
- OTHELLO: Thy name? - MESSENGER: Don't 'ave one.
- OTHELLO: Say you?
- MESSENGER: Cypriot Gentleman number four, sir.
- OTHELLO: Ah... Ah!
Oh, I see you now... yes.
Act 2, scene 2: the fight
With Iago and my lieutenant;
As I enter the fray, Cassio hits,
With the wiggen bottle, your head.
- MESSENGER: Ay, sir, that's me.
- OTHELLO: Very well-spoken, that scene;
ay, with good accent
And good discretion.
- MESSENGER: Ye-yes, sir.
Yes.
Thank you, sir.
- OTHELLO: You may go away now.
- NARRATOR: The Messenger retreats.
- OTHELLO: This fellow's of exceeding innocence,
Yet doubtless sees and knows more, much more,
Than such characters as you and I.
- FALSTAFF: Well, he's the messenger.
- OTHELLO: Ay.
- FALSTAFF: And he's a good lad, sir; just having a laugh.
- OTHELLO: Many a good man's son has put the laugh to me, John;
And though not front to front,
the foul whisperings
By me go not unheard;
and yet 'tis always I
Must forebear.
Something too much of this.
Come, our game.
- NARRATOR: As Othello deals the cards,
Falstaff gets up from the table, grimacing in pain as he does.
Othello speaks to Mistress Quickly.
- OTHELLO: I like not that.
- QUICKLY: Nor I, my lord.
- FALSTAFF: What say'st thou?
- QUICKLY: Nothing, John.
- FALSTAFF: Tell me, now, heard'st thou of the Prince
in thy travels?
- OTHELLO: Faith, I did range the town to seek him out.
He stays not at the court; nor The Tabard Inn,
The George, the Bankside, or The Lamb and Flag.
Where he keeps himself, I could not discern.
- FALSTAFF: Ah, 'tis no matter.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff returns to the table with his drink.
- OTHELLO: I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.
- FALSTAFF: Not a jot, not a jot.
- OTHELLO: I'faith, I see you are moved.
- FALSTAFF: No, not much moved.
Come, let us the cannikins clink!
- OTHELLO: Nay, nay, John, clink not.
I...
I do desire speech with thee.
Thou know'st I have not those easy parts
Of conversation as others have...
- NARRATOR: Falstaff puts down his cards.
- FALSTAFF: What is this?
Thou speakest as if there were some monster
In thy thought too hideous to be shown.
If thou dost love me, show me thy thought.
- OTHELLO: John, you must know that...
John, you and I, we are declined
Into the vale of years.
- FALSTAFF: I deny the inference!
Oh, some smack of age we may have about us;
A relish only of the saltness of time.
- OTHELLO: John!
- FALSTAFF: Very well, proceed.
- OTHELLO: If it be now, 'tis not to come;
If it be not to come, it will be now;
If it be not now,
yet it will come;
The readiness is all.
- FALSTAFF: Clink, CLINK!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
- OTHELLO: S'blood, but you'll not hear me!
- NARRATOR: The door suddenly flies open and
Cleopatra bursts into the room.
- CLEOPATRA: Where the hell is he?!
- FALSTAFF: Of whom do you speak, my Queen?
- CLEOPATRA: You know damn well of whom I speak, John.
Play not the fool with me!
Where lies he now?
With Fulvia again?
Octavia?
Charmian perhaps?
The goddamn soothsayer?
I wouldn't put it past him.
- QUICKLY: What's the matter, lovey?
- CLEOPATRA: Antony!
Antony!
What is ever the matter, but Antony!
- QUICKLY: Oh dear.
- [Cleopatra weeps conspiciously]
CLEOPATRA: O, never was there queen so mightily betrayed.
- FALSTAFF: Cleopatra!
- CLEOPATRA: Why did I think he would be mine and true,
when he hath played false a hundred times ere now!
- OTHELLO: Most sweet queen.
- CLEOPATRA: Most false love!
Cut my lace asunder, Mistress.
Quickly!
Ay, that my pent heart may have scope to beat!
[Cleopatra weeps loudly]
Oh, my oblivion is a very Antony!
- MESSENGER: Pardon me, madam.
- CLEOPATRA: Stay a moment!
I know you.
Act 2, scene 5.
[gasps] You're the messenger.
- MESSENGER: I am? - CLEOPATRA: You're expository.
- MESSENGER: Well, I prefer to think of it as...
- CLEOPATRA: You know all.
- MESSENGER: Well, not really, but a bit.
- CLEOPATRA: Speak then, what news abroad?
- MESSENGER: Madam, Antony is...
- CLEOPATRA: Dead!
Dead for a ducat!
I knew it!
For there's no goodness in thy face if Antony
Be free and healthful.
- MESSENGER: Madam, he is...
- CLEOPATRA: If thou say't, villain, I will unhair thy head!
- MESSENGER: Madam, Antony is very...
- CLEOPATRA: Dead!
Very dead. [weeps]
Oh, melt Egypt into Nile and kindly creatures
Turn all to serpents!
Oh, I faint!
Iras, Charmian!
- QUICKLY: They're not here, madam.
- CLEOPATRA: Tis no matter.
Husband, I come!
Pity me, mistress,
but do not speak to me.
- OTHELLO: Madam, will it please you hear the boy?
- NARRATOR: Cleopatra eyes the Messenger again.
- CLEOPATRA: The gods confound thee,
dost thou hold here still!?
Villain, thou ha'st lived too long!
AH!
- NARRATOR: Cleopatra lunges at the Messenger
and a scrappy tussle ensues.
Falstaff and Othello try to control Cleopatra,
as the Messenger slips out of the tangle and hides.
- OTHELLO: Good madam, keep yourself within yourself,
and hear him speak.
- CLEOPATRA: I am tame, sir.
Your message, now, pronounce.
- QUICKLY: He's afeared to come, madam.
- CLEOPATRA: I will not hurt him.
Approach, boy;
though I am sharp I will not bite.
Come hither.
Speak what you know;
what news abroad?
- MESSENGER: Madam, to punish me for saying
what you would make me say I feel is most unequal.
- CLEOPATRA: Though it be honest,
it is never good
To bring bad news.
- MESSENGER: But I bring no bad news, Madam.
- CLEOPATRA: No? - MESSENGER: No!
Antony is very much alive.
- CLEOPATRA: Oh, heavens!
There's gold for thee!
- MESSENGER: You might even say he is extremely alive.
- [Cleopatra laughs] CLEOPATRA: There is more gold for thee!
- MESSENGER: But yet, madam, he...
- CLEOPATRA: I do not like 'But yet'.
Fie upon 'But yet'.
- MESSENGER: Madam...
he lies at Mistress Bull's house in Deptford with Master Marlowe,
and uh, well, John, and Tommy Dekker, Beaumont, Fletcher.
- CLEOPATRA: John, did you say?
John who?
- MESSENGER: Webster.
- CLEOPATRA: John Webster.
Is the Duchess with him?
- MESSENGER: Duchess, my lady?
- CLEOPATRA: Of Malfi.
- MESSENGER: Ay, Madam.
- CLEOPATRA: AH!
- MESSENGER: It's not my fault, madam!
I'm just the messenger!
I didn't write this!
- [Cleopatra cries loudly] CLEOPATRA: O, Nell, Nell,
what a falling off was there.
That it should come to this.
So loving was he once
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
visit my face too roughly.
Heaven and earth,
Must I remember?
Why he would hang upon me
as if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet...
Let me not think on't;
frailty thy name is Antony.
- QUICKLY: Consider it not so deeply, love.
- CLEOPATRA: The Duchess?
Oh, god, a beast that wants discourse of reason
would have behaved more wisely!
He cannot call it love, for at his age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame,
it's humble and waits upon the judgement;
and what judgement would step from this, to such a thing as...
- You.
Thy, thou.
Come nearer.
- NARRATOR: Cautiously, the Messenger approaches.
- CLEOPATRA: Didst thou behold this... her... the Malfi woman?
- MESSENGER: Ay, dread Queen.
- CLEOPATRA: Say.
Is she as tall as me?
- MESSENGER: She is not, madam.
- CLEOPATRA: Is she stately-tongued or low?
- MESSENGER: She is... low-spoken, madam.
- CLEOPATRA: Diminutive and dull of tongue.
He cannot like her long.
- MESSENGER: No, madam, not possible.
- CLEOPATRA: Thinks thou so?
- MESSENGER: Ay.
- CLEOPATRA: What majesty is in her gait, her stride?
- MESSENGER: She creeps, madam.
- CLEOPATRA: This fellow has good judgement.
I repent me much that I so harried him.
Why methinks by him, this woman is no such thing.
- ALL: None at all, madam.
No.
Of course not.
No.
Nothing.
- CLEOPATRA: Ha!
A diminutive, limping widow
Of two-score... or more!
Ha, Ha!
- MESSENGER: Uh, actually, madam,
I do believe she's thirty.
- CLEOPATRA: Alright, alright!
THIRTY!
She's THIRTY!
Repeat it again, please, so all can hear!
O, God, that I were a man!
I would eat his heart
In the marketplace!
- QUICKLY: Madam!
My Queen, attend thou my words:
Thou knowest, look at me!
Thou knowest
As well as I...
youth's a stuff will not endure.
- CLEOPATRA: 'Tis certain.
Ay, Nell... 'tis certain.
Oh, why did I marry?
These past few weeks, since our sequestering,
Antony has... well, he's been sneaking out to visit
Characters from other plays;
and, as you know now,
Not just Shakespeare's; although that too, I' faith;
Sir John,
Forgive the news, but Mistress Ford and Mistress Page
Ne'er broke their word when they rendezvoused
With Antony at Herne's Oak.
- NARRATOR: She glances at the Messenger.
- CLEOPATRA: Didn't know about that, did you?
- MESSENGER: No, madam.
- CLEOPATRA: Women always know.
And then there was Bianca, Adriana,
Lady Montague, and now this Amalfi woman...
Italians! [scoffs]
He adores women.
I was adored once too.
I was adored o' the world once;
I had a world once;
I was adored of a Caesar too, and he had a world once;
He had a Cleopatra too, and she had once
An Antony.
- NARRATOR: Mistress Quickly offers Cleopatra
a glass of wine.
- CLEOPATRA: Thank you, Nell.
- Caesars, Cleopatras; queens, kings, titles,
Melt away in these sad days as breath into the wind;
An infectious ill-dispersing wind,
Scouring away all but a kind of truth,
perhaps;
A truth of who we really are?
What we really need?
Timon-like, it seems, exposing those who truly
Love us, and those who truly do not...
and perhaps
never have.
- QUICKLY: Alas, sweet Queen.
- CLEOPATRA: Oh, I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends-- subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a Queen?
- QUICKLY: There, now, my honey-heart.
- NARRATOR: As Cleopatra moves away and pours herself
another drink, the door of the tavern flies open again
and a young woman rushes in.
- JULIET: Uncle Jack!
- FALSTAFF: Juliet!
What make you out-o-doors?!
- JULIET: Forgive me, I knew not where else to go.
O, sweet Uncle, cast me not away!
- QUICKLY: How is it with thee, lambkins?
- JULIET: Alack, alack,
is there no pity sitting in the clouds
to see into the bottom of my grief!?
- QUICKLY: What is it, dear?
- JULIET: Oh, these men, these men!
- FALSTAFF: Who hath wronged thee, Jules!?
Is it that villain Romeo again?
Fetch me my rapier, boy!
By heaven, I'll shake the muddy-mettled-Montague
by the ears!
I'll hurt him in eleven places!
- JULIET: Uncle Jack, no, no!
It is my father;
Ever and always the father.
- FALSTAFF: Oh.
Capulet.
- JULIET: Again and again, refusing to lend an ear
Unto my purposes, bidding me do
only that which has been set down for me.
- QUICKLY: Ah, methinks I know what vexes Capulet so;
Nay, I do bear a brain; tell me, love:
where is thy Romeo?
- JULIET: Oh, Romeo, Romeo!
Wherefore am I only ever asked about Romeo!
Can I not be written a single scene
In which our names are not entwined as if we're twins?
- I possess a life of my own!
Wants of my own!
Much to the surprise of my father... and the world
It seems!
- QUICKLY: I was only askin'.
- JULIET: Day, night, work, play,
Alone, in company...Romeo, Romeo!
And if not that, it's father and mother:
Paris! 'Valiant' Paris!
'Summer's flower' Paris!
Ever and anon, their care hath been only
To have me matched, as if I were a china dish,
Worthless until made a set!
God's bread, it makes me mad!
- QUICKLY: Perhaps it's best not to talk about it.
- JULIET: Now, by St. Peter's church, and Peter too,
I'll talk though the heavens themselves do bid
me hold my tongue;
albeit I am twice-treble
Weary of the need to make such a speech
In the first place!
- FALSTAFF: Juliet!
- JULIET: Oh, these parents, these men, this world!
Ever and anon endeavoring to fashion
My life according to their desires!
Not merely must I suffer boundless talks
Of marriage and position, but now,
With this appalling pestilence imprisoning us all within,
utter Bedlam on our household
Hath descended, and bear I the brunt of it myself;
for all save father and I
have quit the house.
- CLEOPATRA: What mean you, Juliet?
- JULIET: Sampson and Gregory do now defer the days
at Madam Bull's in Deptford;
my cousin Tybalt
with great Titania is in love, casts me aside,
and in her close and consecrated bower,
with her endures these tortuous days and hours;
Mother in private chamber pens herself,
shuts up her windows and locks fair daylight out;
The nurse with Friar Lawrence has gone to stay,
and, to pass the time, does nothing there but pray.
So 'tis I alone at whom father takes his aim:
"Awake, awake!
"The morning cock hath crowed!
"'Tis four o' the clock!
"Look to the baked meats!
"Quench the fire, the room hath grown too hot!
"Tend the fire, the room hath grown too cold!
"More light, more light!
"Time to read!
"Time to study!
Now to sew, now to cook, now to pray..."
Marry,
I'll go mad if I stay another day!
- FALSTAFF: Fie, Jules, how you cross your father.
- JULIET: I cannot choose!
Sometimes he angers me;
With telling me of our 'noble parentage,'
And my 'duties bound.'
I tell you what,
he kept me last night at least nine hours
in reckoning up the several wealthy names
of his choice whom I should be 'grateful' to marry!
I cried 'Hum,' and 'Well, go to!'
but marked him not a word.
O, he is as tedious
As a tired horse!
- FALSTAFF: Juliet!
- JULIET: Ay, Ay, very well, I have done.
Yet, by the gods, to keep me sane,
I need a drink ere I can face him once again.
A stoup of wine, mistress.
- FALSTAFF: Hold!
Hold, ladybird!
- JULIET: Uncle...
- FALSTAFF: Unhand that brewage on the instant!
- JULIET: Uncle...
- FALSTAFF: Thou art too young.
- JULIET: My gracious uncle...
- FALSTAFF: Tut, tut, grace me no grace,
nor uncle me no uncle!
I know thy age unto an hour:
Thou hast not yet seen the change of fourteen years.
- JULIET: Uncle, dost think I look of fourteen years?!
- FALSTAFF: Master Shakespeare...
- JULIET: Oh, Master Shakespeare wrote me that age upon the page,
But never has the role been enacted,
Since William first inscribed my very name,
But by one who was also of an age to drink!
Therefore I say a stoup of wine before I go.
- QUICKLY: Tilly-vally, Sir John, tilly-vally;
The girl speaks true enough.
- FALSTAFF: Very well, very well.
Let us crack a quart together!
- NARRATOR: Mistress Quickly sets out glasses on the bar.
- CLEOPATRA: And another for me, Nell; to remedy my nerves.
- Feel you, Juliet, feel how I shake, look you;
- Yea in truth, see;
as 'twere a very aspen leaf.
- JULIET: What sadness is it grieves your majesty?
- CLEOPATRA: Not having that, which having,
grieves me more.
- OTHELLO: 'Tis Antony again.
- JULIET: Oh.
I am sorry.
And Desdemona, my lord, how fares she?
- OTHELLO: She too is suffering her father's house.
- JULIET: God be with her.
- OTHELLO: A man, Juliet, that hath cleft my heart in twain.
He once did love me, oft invited me,
Still questioned me the story of my life;
The battles, sieges...
Well, that is a whole play to tell that story.
Enough.
- CLEOPATRA: Sit, Jules, and stay a while.
- JULIET: Nay, my father surely will run mad
when he finds me gone.
- CLEOPATRA: Yet, stay but a little?
- JULIET: Of course, your majesty.
- NARRATOR: Juliet takes off her cape and jacket
as Mistress Quickly turns to the Messenger.
- QUICKLY: Why so quiet, lad?
- MESSENGER: When my cue comes, I will answer it.
- QUICKLY: Oh.
Well, while you're waitin' for it;
come 'n help me with these drinks.
- NARRATOR: As the Messenger pours the wine,
Mistress Quickly turns to Falstaff.
- QUICKLY: Strange, is it not?
His news delivered, yet still he tarries here.
- NARRATOR: The Messenger hands Juliet a drink.
- JULIET: Thank you, sir.
Serving Man number 3, yes?
- MESSENGER: Ay, the party: Act 1, scene 5.
- JULIET: Those were happy days, those scenes.
What news abroad?
- MESSENGER: None but that the world's grown honest.
- JULIET: Then is doomsday near.
But your news is false, sir,
for to be honest as this world goes is to be
one person picked out of ten thousand.
- FALSTAFF: In that, my child, we are in accord.
Let us, therefore, like to a little kingdom,
sit jointly in council;
and we two, as one,
shall rail against the world together.
- CLEOPATRA: Nay, we three as two shall rail against...
we one as three shall rail...
we...
whatever.
Ay, Jules, ay, thou art not alone, child, in thy woes.
Speak'st thou of thy father's house?
My father was a King, now there's trouble at home.
Of course, Master Shakespeare
didn't write me any of those scenes;
no, no, much more interested
in my running around after Antony for three and half hours.
Why, by Isis, in my salad days I spoke nine languages,
was schooled in mathematics, philosophy, oratory, astronomy;
lead a naval fleet into battle,
and ruled a kingdom for 22 years!
Thanks to William,
what am I remembered for in the world today?
Antony and an asp.
- JULIET: Forgive me, your Majesty,
but heaven knows
you need not suffer it as you are wont to do.
- CLEOPATRA: Pardon me, my child,
do not presume upon our friendship.
I do not suffer it.
I do not suffer anything.
Or anyone.
I am rendered as the Author intends.
- JULIET: Well... alter the rendering then.
- FALSTAFF: What say you?
- JULIET: Alter it.
- CLEOPATRA: That's absurd, child.
- JULIET: Why?
Why is it absurd?
- QUICKLY: Alter it?
- JULIET: Yes.
- OTHELLO: That is not possible.
- JULIET: Why?!
- CLEOPATRA: Because this is our script, our life!
- JULIET: No, it isn't.
It's his script and his life!
- OTHELLO: They are all the same, child.
- JULIET: No they are not.
And everyone please stop calling me child!
We are all of us merely players;
we have our exits and entrances as he wills them.
We exist only in his imagination,
And only we can change that? - MESSENGER: How?
- CLEOPATRA: I do not exist only in some man's imagination!
- JULIET: Of course you do!
You were written into it.
- All of us were...
besides, you just said as much!
- CLEOPATRA: I did not!
- JULIET: Antony?!
- CLEOPATRA: Speak not of Antony!
- OTHELLO: Ladies...
- JULIET: I didn't, you did!
You just said
All you're known for is Antony!
- CLEOPATRA: I did not!
- QUICKLY: I think you did, lovey!
- MESSENGER: Ay, she did!
- CLEOPATRA: Darest thou wag thy tongue at me, villain!?
AH!
- QUICKLY: Your majesty!
- JULIET: He does nothing but speak true!
- OTHELLO: Now, by heaven, my blood begins
my safer guides to rule.
That shall suffice!!
By heaven...
I'll make a ghost of they that disobey.
- FALSTAFF: I thank thee, General.
All of you now, attend me...
Now, this is not the time for friend against friend.
We will have no cursing or vexing of each other here...
except mine own mellifluous metaphors,
resplendent swearings, and my strikingly
alliterative, long-winded, and might I add,
highly original plethora of oathings!
Thou fobbing, dread-bolted, logger-headed,
motley-minded, flock of Popinjays!
We'll have no more of discord and dismay,
the world provides us quite enough of that today.
Othello, my friend!
Let us play!
- NARRATOR: Falstaff takes out his sword.
- OTHELLO: Play, my lord?
- FALSTAFF: Ay, play a match with me
to shake off this great frost
of misery.
I say, come!
- NARRATOR: They push aside chairs and tables
as Falstaff begins warming up.
- FALSTAFF: The key, my friends, to maintaining...
a physique such as mine, is...
resist, Cleopatra, resist, - [Cleopatra giggles]
- FALSTAFF: is daily exercise in the art of defense.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff takes a lunge
from which he pretends he cannot rise.
Juliet and Cleopatra, seeing the joke, rush in to help.
- FALSTAFF: Thank you, my ladies, thank you.
By the mass, I had forgot me, hast either of thee
heard aught of my mad wag, Hal?
- JULIET: I'm sorry, Uncle, no.
- CLEOPATRA: Nor I.
- FALSTAFF: By my troth, I care not!
The Prince is a Jack!
And he were here I would cudgel him like a dog;
For the snipe cannot move a man to laughter
More than a joint-stool!
He hath no more wit in him than a mallet.
- [laughter]
- OTHELLO: Come, my friend, we are too old for such dallying.
- FALSTAFF: Old, say you!?
Why this young trunk of mine hath yet
the very pith of life in't!
- NARRATOR: Falstaff takes a deep stretch,
trying to touch his toes.
- OTHELLO: Can'st see the toes thou'rt striving for, Sir John?
- FALSTAFF: Ay, goodman-wit;
I see them, feelingly.
- QUICKLY: Well, lie down then, lovey, 'n see if that helps!
- FALSTAFF: Have you any levers to lift me up again,
being down?
- [laughter]
- CLEOPATRA: Alas the day, good heart,
this is excellent sport!
- FALSTAFF: Weep not sweet Queen,
for trickling tears are vain.
- CLEOPATRA: Ha, ha, ha, ha!
- FALSTAFF: For god's sake, friends,
convey my tristful Queen
for tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.
- CLEOPATRA: Ha, ha, ha, ha!
- FALSTAFF: Come, sir, thou Hector to my Achilles, come!
- NARRATOR: Othello and Falstaff, swords out,
take their positions.
- FALSTAFF: Hold!
I'll wager, sir, that in a half dozen passes,
you shall not exceed me three hits.
- OTHELLO: What is the wager?
- FALSTAFF: My bar bill.
- OTHELLO: Nay!
Too rich for me.
- FALSTAFF: Very well, then,
very well...
a bottle of my Mistress' finely brewed sack.
Be the terms satisfactory?
- OTHELLO: They be.
- FALSTAFF: And so it begins.
- NARRATOR: The men take en garde positions.
- QUICKLY: Don't break anything, Sir John!
- FALSTAFF: Fear not, sweet wench, I am lithe and limber.
- QUICKLY: I mean the furniture, John!
- FALSTAFF: Come, sir, begin.
And you the judges, bear a wary eye.
- NARRATOR: They play a bout of sword play.
It is very fun, very friendly throughout.
Othello is clearly the better of the two,
but we see occasional bursts of Sir John's expertise.
- OTHELLO: One! - FALSTAFF: No!
- OTHELLO: Judgement. - QUICKLY: A hit!
- JULIET: A hit! - CLEOPATRA: A palpable hit!
- FALSTAFF: Well, sir, again.
- QUICKLY: Stay!
Give them drink!
Here's to thy health, my hearty Hector!
- FALSTAFF: Achilles, woman, I am Achilles!
- NARRATOR: Mistress Quickly offers Falstaff a drink.
- FALSTAFF: Nay, I'll play this bout first.
Set it by a while.
Have at you now!
- NARRATOR: They play again.
Sir John, begins to get a little more winded as they play.
- OTHELLO: Another hit, what say you?
- FALSTAFF: I do confess't.
- CLEOPATRA: I'faith, Sir John, you're as red as any rose.
- FALSTAFF: Flushed with victory, that is all, my Queen!
- OTHELLO: What, art thou hurt, man?
- FALSTAFF: Nay, nay, a scratch, a scratch.
Come again, sir!
- NARRATOR: Falstaff is trying to catch his breath,
and all are beginning to get a little concerned,
except for the Messenger, who still thinks it's just a game.
- QUICKLY: I' faith, Sir John,
ye've drunk too much canaries.
- FALSTAFF: I know not the meaning of the phrase,
'Too much.'
Come again, sir!
- OTHELLO: Nay, nay, Sir John, prithee,
give me leave to breathe a while.
- FALSTAFF: Certes, say I.
Certes.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff is helped into a chair.
- FALSTAFF: I do concede thy concession, with grace,
And allow thee rest.
Behold, though, how I
am barely breathed.
- MESSENGER: Barely breathed?
Ha, ha!
Ye can barely move, Sir John!
Marry, he's fat and scant of breath, i'n't he!
- QUICKLY: Not now, lad, sh!
- OTHELLO: Nay, young sir.
- MESSENGER: There's no room for breath
in that ancient bosom,
it's all filled up with guts and midriff!
Ha, ha! Ha, ha!
- NARRATOR: Falstaff rises and approaches the Messenger.
- MESSENGER: What?
- JULIET: Uncle Jack. - OTHELLO: Good sir.
- FALSTAFF: All's well. - MESSENGER: What?
I didn't mean nuthin', my lord.
'Twas my cue to speak.
- FALSTAFF: Ay, so it was, my boy, so it was;
You could not 'alter' that, could you?
- MESSENGER: Well, uh, no, I don't think so, my lord;
I was just havin' a bit of a laugh, like the rest.
- FALSTAFF: Ay, ay, 'tis no fault of yours.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff takes up another sword
and holds it out to the Messenger.
- FALSTAFF: Come.
Will you play a bout with me?
- MESSENGER: Play a... uh, I'm just the messenger, sir.
I never been written into a fight.
- FALSTAFF: Yet, I heard thee say even now thou fought'st
in "Othello," Act 2, scene 2.
- MESSENGER: Ay, but that was just gettin' knocked about
wi' a wiggen bottle, sir.
I cannot play at this.
- FALSTAFF: Oh, come, I'll teach thee.
Thou art young and strong, ay?
- NARRATOR: Falstaff places the sword
in the Messenger's hand.
- FALSTAFF: Very well then.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff takes an en garde position.
- FALSTAFF: Now.
Have at me, boy.
- MESSENGER: My lord, I cannot. - FALSTAFF: I pray you.
- MESSENGER: Believe me, I cannot.
- FALSTAFF: I do beseech you.
- MESSENGER: I know no touch of it, my lord.
- FALSTAFF: It is as easy as mocking.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff puts down his weapon
and helps the Messenger with his sword.
- FALSTAFF: Grasp thou the pommel
with your fingers and thumb, thus;
give it motion with thine arm,
and it will thrust and parry most efficiently.
Look you, here is the grip.
Come, come, 'tis only a game.
- MESSENGER: But this I cannot command
to any semblance of proficiency, my lord.
I have not the skill.
Forgive me, I cannot play!
- FALSTAFF: Why look you now, how unworthy a thing
you make of me.
You would play upon me,
you would seem to know the breadth of my worth,
you would pluck at the heartstrings of mine age;
You would scorn me in my lowest days,
at the height of mine infirmity;
And there is much skill, much death
in this little instrument,
yet cannot you make it sing?
- NARRATOR: Falstaff takes up his sword again.
- FALSTAFF: 'Zounds, here's my fiddlestick.
Here's that shall make you dance!
- NARRATOR: Othello, weapon in hand, steps between them.
- OTHELLO: Put up your sword, Sir John!
- NARRATOR: Falstaff, with amazing agility,
quickly disarms Othello.
His sword is now at the Messenger's throat.
- FALSTAFF: Thou unthinking, unmannered, unexceptional, boy.
There was once much spirit,
much vigor, joy, life, skill, strength, expertise
and expectation in this old grayness of mine.
The glory of my youth may be on the wane,
but not my heart.
Yea, I am not now of that strength which in the old days
could move hearts and fell men;
that which I am, I am;
made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to survive,
to seek, to live, and not to yield.
Call me what you will,
though you fret me you cannot play upon me.
- NARRATOR: Suddenly, Falstaff drops his sword
and stumbles up the stairs to the bedchamber,
clearly pained from the exertion.
Cleopatra and Mistress Quickly go to him.
- CLEOPATRA: He's feverous and doth shake.
- QUICKLY: Juliet, I prithee, come with us.
- NARRATOR: The women help Falstaff into the bedchamber.
- MESSENGER: I... I didn't mean it.
I am sorry.
- OTHELLO: 'Tis better playing with a lion's welp,
than with an old one dying.
- MESSENGER: Dying?
Is it...?
I mean, does he 'ave...?
- OTHELLO: Fear not, my boy,
'Tis not the plague that is killing our friend,
it is his heart.
*
- NARRATOR: End of Act One.
*
- NARRATOR: Act Two.
It is very early the next morning.
Othello and the Messenger are alone at a table.
Othello is teaching the Messenger a card game.
They are using nuts from a wooden bowl to bet.
- OTHELLO: Queen Elizabeth... she is unusually fond
of this game.
She did take Lord North for thirty-three pounds
I am told.
- NARRATOR: Othello shuffles the cards.
- OTHELLO: If thou playest among strangers,
beware of him that seems simple or drunken;
For under this habit the most special cozeners
are presented, and while you think that
by their simplicity and imperfections
you may beguile them,
it is yourself will be most overtaken.
- MESSENGER: You seem very well versed in this, my lord.
- OTHELLO: Ay, I never prospered since I yielded myself
to Primero.
- NARRATOR: We hear a loud coughing coming
from Sir John's chamber.
- OTHELLO: The web of our lives is as a mingled yarn,
the good and bad together.
Come, let us toss another hand.
- NARRATOR: Othello deals two cards each.
- MESSENGER: Alright, so...
first off, I 'ave to Bid, Stake, or Pass.
- OTHELLO: Verily, 'tis true.
- MESSENGER: I bid two.
- OTHELLO: Nay, nay... recover your nuts again.
You must first declare your points, and state your hand
- MESSENGER: Um... Primero 20, bid 2.
- OTHELLO: Very good, i'faith!
See how quickly thou dost prosper.
Now, look you, I am in possession two sevens, for 42,
which I could then pass, risking not a nut;
or I bid myself: Primero 34, Bid 15.
- MESSENGER: Does that mean
I 'ave to give up more o' me nuts?
- NARRATOR: Cleopatra enters from Falstaff's chamber,
holding a paper in her hand.
- CLEOPATRA: I prithee, lend a hand, where's Juliet?
- MESSENGER: Gone.
- CLEOPATRA: What mean you gone?!
- MESSENGER: There's an apothecary,
which late she'd noted,
and hereabouts he dwells;
she's gone to seek him out.
- CLEOPATRA: If the searchers of the city do but her suspect
of being where the pestilence doth reign,
there shall they keep her confined--
what need the risk?
- OTHELLO: 'Tis Juliet, my Queen, she reasons not the need.
Speak to her I did, but she would have her way.
- MESSENGER: The Warders have marked no houses there yet,
nor posted papers on the doors.
- CLEOPATRA: What doth she hope to gain?
There are no medicines she can procure...
The fees are thrice-doubled now.
- OTHELLO: I did give her forty ducats for the nonce.
- CLEOPATRA: How long hath she been gone?
- OTHELLO: Since the bell struck two...
- CLEOPATRA: Heavens keep her safe.
- OTHELLO: How does Sir John?
- CLEOPATRA: Faith, very ill.
In the heaviness of sleep
we bathed him and put fresh garments on him,
but the fever lingers.
It will not break.
I prithee, help.
- NARRATOR: Cleopatra hands the paper to Othello.
- CLEOPATRA: I was given that of Dr. Caius once,
may be it will his fever ease.
Pray you, search with me.
- OTHELLO: "Take of sage, rue, briar leaves, elder leaves:
of each a handful."
- CLEOPATRA: I know there's rue, there's always rue.
- OTHELLO: "Stamp and strain them
with a quart of white wine."
- MESSENGER: That we have, i' faith.
- OTHELLO: "And put thereto a little ginger,
and a good spoonful of the best honey."
- CLEOPATRA: Here's elder, but I see no sage.
- OTHELLO: "And drink thereof morning and evening."
- MESSENGER: What's the look of briar leaf?
I found some honey.
- CLEOPATRA: There's no briar, no sage, nor ginger...
now by Apollo,
we've not half here of what is needed!
- OTHELLO: Aqua vitae and chicory set with lemons,
did my mother give.
- MESSENGER: Violet and strawberry leaves
mixed in almond milk;
My grandmother gave to us.
- CLEOPATRA: We've a tavern here,
not the blasted London market!
Soft you,
what monies have we all together now?
- MESSENGER: Nay, it matters not, Madam.
The merchants
have closed theirs shops for good,
taken their wares
and left the city with all the great folk.
There's naught to be done.
- CLEOPATRA: The God's confound thee!
AH! By Isis!
I will give thee bloody teeth
If thou once again bring no better news than bad!
- MESSENGER: I have made no fault, madam!
- OTHELLO: Cleopatra!
- CLEOPATRA: I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.
So oft my fears convert to anger.
Beshrew these sad, unhelpful tears!
Like Niobe.
Come, friend;
pray, forgive and forget.
- NARRATOR: Mistress Quickly
enters from Falstaff's bedchamber.
- QUICKLY: Any luck, love?
- CLEOPATRA: Little.
Half, at that.
- QUICKLY: Bring it up then; make use o' what we can.
- OTHELLO: How fares he?
- QUICKLY: Alas, poor heart,
he's so shaked of a burning.
His heart is fracted, sure.
He asked for a song.
Poor dear, only for song and sack he asks.
Can any of you play? - MESSENGER: Ay!
First Musician; Act 4, Scene 5; Juliet's Chamber.
Among other plays.
What tune, Mistress?
I know 'em all. - QUICKLY: I don't know, lad;
what you will. - MESSENGER: Oh, ay!
I got one.
- NARRATOR: Mistress Quickly starts toward the bedchamber.
Othello stops her.
- OTHELLO: May't please you, Mistress,
tender this to Sir John.
- NARRATOR: He takes out his mother's handkerchief
and holds it carefully in his hands.
- OTHELLO: My mother did bid me once, if ever Fate
should show me brother or sister in more need of it
than myself, then 'tis I should give it they.
So please you now, I offer it Sir John.
- NARRATOR: He places the handkerchief in her hands.
- OTHELLO: Take heed on't:
there's magic in the web of it.
- QUICKLY: Indeed, I'll give it him, my lord.
- OTHELLO: It is required we do awake our faith.
- QUICKLY: Ay, my lord.
The song, sir.
- NARRATOR: Mistress Quickly exits with the handkerchief.
Cleopatra goes with her.
- MESSENGER: This is Act 2, scene 5 in "As You Like It."
My character is a little hard to see in that scene,
but I'm in there, to the left o' the second sycamore.
William writes: "Enter Amiens, Jacques, and Others."
That's me: 'Others.'
And, mind you, I am not like some o' those other clowns
who say more than the Author actually sets down for them...
no, tha's not me.
For there be 'o them that will themselves laugh,
to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too;
though, in the mean time some necessary question of the play
be then to be considered.
That's villainous...
that's what Master Shakespeare says...
and shows 'a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that does it'.
- NARRATOR: Cleopatra rushes out of the bedchamber.
- CLEOPATRA: Now by Jupiter and by Juno too... the song!
- MESSENGER: Ay, Ay, sorry.
Sorry, here i'tis.
- NARRATOR: Cleopatra slams the bedchamber door shut.
- MESSENGER: Sorry.
- OTHELLO: Warble, my son;
make passionate his sense of hearing.
*
- MESSENGER: [sings] * Under the greenwood tree
* Who loves to lie with me
* And turn his merry
- NARRATOR: We hear a loud commotion
coming from Sir John's chamber--
unintelligible shouting.
Something smashes against the wall.
Mistress Quickly enters.
- QUICKLY: Peace, lad, peace!
Another tune, he likes it not!
- MESSENGER: A love song or a song o' good life?
- QUICKLY: Nay, he cares not for good life--
something bawdy-- faster, louder!
- NARRATOR: She exits.
- MESSENGER: I got one.
*
[sings] * Do nothing but eat
* And make good cheer
* And pray to God for a merrier year *
* When Drink is cheap and friends are dear *
* And loves are found both far and near... *
* Be merry, be merry, for life is all! *
* So do me right
* And dub me knight
* Fill the cup
* And let it come
* I'll pledge you to the bottom! *
* Say, hey, a merry heart lives long! *
* Do nothing but sing and dance the hall, *
* And woo your loves both short and tall; *
* 'N treasure the days you can recall *
* Of those who did your
* hearts enthrall.
* Be merry, be merry, for life is all! *
* So do me right and dub me knight *
* Fill the cup and let it come; *
* I'll pledge you to the bottom! *
* Say, hey,
* A merry heart lives long!
*
- OTHELLO: Well, that was...
an enthusiastic rendition.
- NARRATOR: Othello pays the Messenger
with some of the nuts they used in the card game.
- OTHELLO: There is for thy pains.
- MESSENGER: No pains, sir, I take pleasure in singing.
- OTHELLO: I'll pay thy pleasure then.
- MESSENGER: Truly, sir,
and pleasure will be paid one time or another.
- NARRATOR: The front door flies open and Juliet rushes in.
- JULIET: We are undone, my lord, we are undone!
- OTHELLO: How dost thou, Juliet?
What news?
- JULIET: Oh, break my heart.
Poor bankrupt, break at once.
I saw them in the streets;
saw it with mine eyes,
God save the mark, poor souls;
pale, pale as ashes.
I swounded at the sight.
- OTHELLO: And the apothecary?
- JULIET: Oh God... I have an ill-divining soul!
My father.
Methinks I see my father
Nnow as one dead in the bottom of a tomb--
- OTHELLO: Juliet.
- JULIET: I want to go home.
I need to go home, my lord.
- NARRATOR: Juliet takes up a sword and runs for the door.
- JULIET: See well to my uncle.
- OTHELLO: Juliet, hold!
- JULIET: I will not, sir.
- OTHELLO: It is not yet near day;
wait for the sun to show itself.
- JULIET: Nay, my lord, I dare no longer stay.
- NARRATOR: Othello steps between Juliet and the door.
- JULIET: Do not bar my way, good sir.
- OTHELLO: Look ye, now!
I have known battles and sieges;
Accidents of flood and field, and hair-breadth scapes
in the imminent deadly breach of war.
This is but another battle.
This I know.
Allow me council.
- JULIET: Speak, my lord.
- OTHELLO: Here we are yet well.
Here we are all safe.
We have each other.
All this is comfort.
Yes?
Now.
In the morning, early, I myself and...
What is your name?
- MESSENGER: Sorry... I don't have one, sir.
- OTHELLO: I and the messenger will escort
thee to thy father's house.
- JULIET: And if it then be sealed and I shut out?
- OTHELLO: 'Tis almost morning--
an hour more is all I say;
if danger there is to face,
See it better by the day.
- NARRATOR: Juliet puts down her sword.
- JULIET: Oh, God, God, think'st thou these dark days
will ever end?
- OTHELLO: I doubt it not.
- JULIET: I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins.
- OTHELLO: As do I, Juliet.
Never battle has there been,
where, before the like,
I have not felt the same.
We are none of us ourselves these days.
Now.
Tell me.
Founds't thou the apothecary?
- JULIET: Indeed I did, sir, but seeing it was a house
where the infectious pestilence did reign,
I did not dare to enter...
I am sorry, I could not.
- OTHELLO: You did well and right.
- JULIET: As I was leaving, the searchers of the town
sealed up the doors of the house
along with all that stood nearby.
I myself escaped
by nary a breath or they'd have sealed me in too.
- OTHELLO: Darkness and devils!
- NARRATOR: Cleopatra enters.
- CLEOPATRA: How now, Juliet,
what said the apothecary?
Can he minister to a heart diseased?
- JULIET: The doors were shut upon me, madam;
To him I spoke not.
- CLEOPATRA: Oh, would that you had...
And that he might, with some oblivious sweet antidote,
cleanse too the disease that weighs upon our land,
and purge it to a sound and pristine health.
- JULIET: How does my Uncle Jack?
- CLEOPATRA: Scarce half-awake.
Resting, yet still weak and fever-shaken.
I'll let them alone a while.
- JULIET: I hope all will be well.
- MESSENGER: The tour might help him a bit;
out in the country,
the open air;
n' spring is well-nigh here.
I know a bank where the wild thyme grows,
and these violets... beggar all description.
- OTHELLO: Tour?
What mean you tour?
- MESSENGER: Oh, Master Shakespeare's puttin' together
a tour for everyone.
- OTHELLO: Othello's occupation's found!
- NARRATOR: Othello rises quickly.
- OTHELLO: I will a commission forthwith dispatch.
Arm I pray you for this speedy voyage.
- MESSENGER: Uh, sorry, sir... no!
No, sir.
No again.
My fault.
I was saying that Will's put together a tour
for everyone that's in "Merry Wives."
- OTHELLO: Not "Othello?"
- MESSENGER: I am sorry, sir, no.
- OTHELLO: Why... why is this?!
Thinks he I can make a life of complacency?
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
looking before and after, gave us not
that capability and godlike reason
to fust in us unused!
- MESSENGER: Oh, no, it's not that, sir,
it's just that "Merry Wives,"
well, all ya need is a couple o' chairs, table,
and a buck basket;
and then, for Herne's Oak
we can use wha'ever woods we find there;
But with "Othello," ye got Cyprus, Venice;
Venice, Cyprus;
the Venetian and Cypriot Costumes;
Senators;
we got wiggen bottles...
It's just too much to lug along.
- CLEOPATRA: Well, thank the gods it's not Antony and I;
We'd devour each other e're the first night's call;
I'd rather go Roman and swallow hot coals.
- JULIET: I can't believe touring to be such a hardship.
- CLEOPATRA: At your age, my dear, of course you cannot;
Trust me, the allure dissipates.
Quickly.
I was toured for 15 years in my day,
with a scant 12 actors and
a brace of juvenile hirelings picked up along the way,
to play 66 characters and 34 speaking parts in 42 scenes;
and then, for the Battle of Actium,
a burnished boat which literally burned on the water.
Every night.
Thank you, no.
I'm quite content to wait
until the theaters reopen again.
- JULIET: Well, why can't we tour "Juliet and Romeo?"
Not much is needed for that.
- MESSENGER: Uh, balcony.
- JULIET: I'll see to Uncle Jack.
- NARRATOR: Juliet starts up the stairs
but is stopped by a sudden, loud, banging on the front door.
Everyone freezes.
The knocking continues.
When it stops, the Messenger carefully opens the door.
There is now a large RED CROSS painted across it,
with a paper NOTICE nailed beneath.
The Messenger stares at the notice.
- OTHELLO: Pray, sir, can you read?
- MESSENGER: Ay, mine own fortune in our misery.
- OTHELLO: I mean what you see.
- MESSENGER: Ay, sir.
It reads,
"LORD HAVE MERCY UPON US."
There'll be no leavin' this place now.
- CLEOPATRA: Why so?
None here are ill.
- MESSENGER: They need only suspect, madam.
- NARRATOR: The Messenger peers down the street.
- MESSENGER: They got Warders stationed at every corner...
And they're armed.
- OTHELLO: Let me see.
- JULIET: How may this be prevented?
- MESSENGER: It may not, madam.
Confined we are till further direction be given.
- JULIET: My father shall grow sick with fear,
He knows not where I am.
- CLEOPATRA: How long will it last, think you?
- MESSENGER: That's up to the Privy Council, my lady.
Eight, ten days... could be as much as forty.
- JULIET: Oh, God.
- CLEOPATRA: There's not food enough for forty days.
- MESSENGER: We can entreat more food o' the Warders.
- OTHELLO: Say you?
- MESSENGER: Place we what coin we have
in a bowl o' vinegar,
and set it outside the door.
- OTHELLO: How know you that?
- MESSENGER: Messenger.
- OTHELLO: Ah.
Juliet, the forty ducats I did give thee!
Boy, discern thou the provision of water.
My lady, get me some ink and paper;
I'll draw the form and model of our charge.
- NARRATOR: As everyone busies themselves,
Mistress Quickly enters from the bedchamber
and stands silent on the upper landing.
Everyone stops.
- QUICKLY: Bristle thy courage up;
for Falstaff he is dead.
- CLEOPATRA: Oh, break my heart.
- OTHELLO: Is it e'en so?
- JULIET: Can heaven be so envious?
- QUICKLY: Ay, that it can.
His immortal part with angels lives.
A' made a finer end and went away an' it had been
any christom child;
a' parted even now:
for after I saw him fumble with the sheets
and smile upon his fingers' ends,
I knew there was but one way;
for his cheeks were pale as lead,
and a' babbled of green fields.
'How now, sir John!'
quoth I 'what, man!
be o' good cheer.'
So a' cried out 'God, God, God!'
three or four times.
Now I, to comfort him, bid him a' should not think of God;
I hoped there was no need to trouble himself
with any such thoughts yet.
So a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet:
I put my hand into the bed and felt them,
and they were as cold as any stone;
then I felt to his knees, and they were as cold as any stone,
and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.
He cried out for sack, he did.
And a song.
- CLEOPATRA: There's a great spirit gone.
- JULIET: Heaven make a star of him.
- OTHELLO: What can I say?
His spirit exceeds my speech.
- CLEOPATRA: He never lifted up his voice but people laughed.
He was too full of life to live long;
We shall not see his like again.
- FALSTAFF: Do not think so, sweet wags,
ye shall not find it so!
Ha, ha!
- NARRATOR: Falstaff is wearing a night shirt now
and has Othello's handkerchief tied around his forehead.
- QUICKLY: God save us!
- OTHELLO: What's this?
- CLEOPATRA: Praise, Isis.
- JULIET: Heaven bless us!
- QUICKLY: Sweet, sweet, sweet, honey lord!
- CLEOPATRA: And they say miracles are past!
- OTHELLO: The handkerchief!
- QUICKLY: But I saw thee breathless and cold,
pale as lead!
- FALSTAFF: Tut, tut, my love,
'twas but my time to counterfeit!
Or that hot termagant of a tapster death had found me sure
'n pressed me for payment... 'tis not due yet!
I would be loath to pay him before his time!
- JULIET: If this were played upon a stage,
I would condemn it as an improbable fiction.
- QUICKLY: I thought thou hadst left me, John!
- FALSTAFF: Nay, nay, a death-counterfeiting slumber,
t'was all it was.
If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
my dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
I dreamt that Hal returned and found me dead...
strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think...
and breathed such life with laughter
into my heart that I revived and was an Emperor.
Ha, ha!
- CLEOPATRA: Hark, how hard he fetches breath.
- FALSTAFF: Why, look you!
Here comes the rascally wag now, as I am a knight true-bred!
- NARRATOR: Falstaff is speaking to the air.
There is no Hal before him. - FALSTAFF: Ha, ha!
HAL!
HAL!!!
God save thee, sweet boy!
My prince!
My Jove!
- QUICKLY: Alas, Sir John, how is't with you,
that you do bend your eye on vacancy?
- FALSTAFF: I knew thou wouldst ne'er deny my love!
- OTHELLO: He knows not what he says: and bootless 'tis
that we present thus to him.
- QUICKLY: John, John, whereon do you look?
- FALSTAFF: Why, on... on...
- NARRATOR: Falstaff falters,
the vision before him begins to fade,
when suddenly the Messenger
steps into Falstaff's line of sight.
- FALSTAFF: On him!
Ha, ha!
On him!
Come closer, ye rogue ye!!
- NARRATOR: The Messenger steps closer,
remarkably Prince-like now.
Falstaff turns to Othello.
- FALSTAFF: I told thee, Master Shallow, did I not,
I would be sent for in private by him?
Ha, ha!
He disavowed me not.
Look you...
he will be King here one day,
and so in public must he seem to stand aloof from me.
- NARRATOR: He turns back to the Messenger.
- FALSTAFF: Hal, my heart's life, where hast been, lad?
I should chide thee horribly for vexing me so with thy absence.
Ay, father-like, as I have always been to thee,
I shall examine thee on the particulars of thy life,
thou heart-ruiner, thou.
Ha, ha.
Thy father is a King, is he not?
As am I, in this my dominion of companions...
yea, thou, and thou,
and thou, yea all of thee be the riches of my kingdom.
Canst thou?
- NARRATOR: Falstaff, noticing his change of shirt,
loses his way again and turns to Mistress Quickly.
- FALSTAFF: Pray, do not mock me,
but all the skill I have remembers not these garments,
nor do I know where I did lodge last night.
- QUICKLY: We're at the Boar's Head, John...
oh lord, your hands are ice cold.
- FALSTAFF: Ay, that's well said, Master Ford;
a good heart's worth gold.
- QUICKLY: Juliet, your cloak.
- FALSTAFF: Ay, fetch me my robe!
I have immortal longings in me!
- NARRATOR: He addresses Cleopatra and Mistress Quickly.
- FALSTAFF: Mistress Page.
Mistress Ford.
My sweet dears, my does;
setting the attraction of my good parts aside,
would you be so kind as to help a foolish,
fond, old man.
- NARRATOR: They help Falstaff to sit down.
- FALSTAFF: This shall be my chair of state.
- NARRATOR: He calls to Othello.
- FALSTAFF: Bardolph!
Give me a cup of sack to make mine eyes look red,
that it may be thought I have wept for my Hal's absence;
for I must speak in passion.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff is distracted suddenly
by the sight of Juliet.
- FALSTAFF: You are a spirit, I know;
where did you die?
- JULIET: Uncle Jack, dost thou know me?
- FALSTAFF: To speak plainly,
I fear that I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, but I am doubtful.
Pray do not laugh at me, for, as I am a man,
I think this lady to be Lear's child, Cordelia.
Ah!
Be your tears wet?
I pray you, weep not, my nightingale.
Though I am mightily abused, know that I shall chastise
my wayward one-time son.
Stand aside, nobility!
- NARRATOR: Everyone obeys Falstaff and moves away...
everyone except the Messenger,
who remains standing as Prince Hal.
- FALSTAFF: We are amazed, and thus long have we stood to
watch the fearful bending of thy knee
because we thought ourself thy lawful king.
- NARRATOR: The Messenger kneels.
- FALSTAFF: Harry.
Harry.
I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time,
but also how thou art accompanied;
yea, in what villainous fellowship
thou dost pass thy days.
And yet, there is a very virtuous man I have often noted
in thy company, but I know not his name.
- MESSENGER: What manner of man, an it like your majesty?
- FALSTAFF: A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent;
of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage;
and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r lady,
inclining to three score; and now I remember me,
his name is... his name is...
- MESSENGER: Falstaff.
- FALSTAFF: Falstaff!
So it is!
Harry, I see virtue in this man.
Thou shoulds't with him have kept and banished all the rest.
Tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me,
where hast been?
Ungracious boy, deny'st me thy love for my age?
That I am old, the more the pity,
these white hairs do witness it;
but that I am less the friend
because of it, that I utterly deny.
If sack and singing be a fault, God help the wicked!
If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I
know is damned.
If to covet friendship be a vice,
then I am the most offending soul alive.
If to be fat is be to be hated, why then 'tis a fault 'gainst
heaven, for 'twas heaven created me as I am.
No, my boy;
banish illness, banish piousness;
banish falsehood, hatred and hypocrisy:
but for sweet Jack Falstaff,
kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,
valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant,
being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff,
banish not him thy Harry's company,
banish not him thy Harry's company:
banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
- MESSENGER: I do not.
I will not.
- NARRATOR: The Messenger takes Falstaff's hand
and kisses the back of it.
- FALSTAFF: Why, is not this, then, all?
Now art thou what thou art:
my son, my Icarus, my blossom.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff is suddenly distracted again
and shouts to a vision before him.
- FALSTAFF: You get thee gone, huh!
I've been drinking all night;
I am not fitted for it.
- NARRATOR: He turns back to the Messenger.
- FALSTAFF: Here again, by my side, Hal.
Indeed, thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion and showed thou
mak'st some tender of my life
in this fair rescue that thou has brought me.
- NARRATOR: He speaks again to the vision.
- FALSTAFF: Avaunt and quit my sight!
There'll be a time for such a word tomorrow!
- NARRATOR: He turns back to the Messenger.
- FALSTAFF: You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
as if you were dismayed.
Be not disturbed by my infirmity,
'tis but my revels which are now ending,
and this...
is all spirit,
and soon to be melted into air,
into thin air;
and, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
shall fade and dissolve;
as must we all, for we are such stuff as dreams are made on.
- NARRATOR: Again he turns and speaks to the vision.
- FALSTAFF: Oh, very well, very well!
ye crook-pated pester-y rascal.
You shall have gold enough to pay the debt twenty times o'er.
My reckoning, Mistress!
It is a heavy one, but well spent.
Ha, ha!
I would 'twere bed-time, Hal, and all well.
- NARRATOR: Falstaff rises and confronts the vision
before him.
- FALSTAFF: Oh, marry, I was as virtuously given
as a gentleman need be, virtuous enough!
I swore little; I diced not above seven times a week;
I drank too much once in a quarter... of an hour;
I paid money that I borrowed, three of four times;
I lived well and in good company... mostly.
Nay, nay... you work your work, and I mine,
and there's the rendezvous of it!
- NARRATOR: He turns back to the Messenger,
who he no longer sees as Hal.
- FALSTAFF: Give us a song, lad!
Give us a...
who are you?
- MESSENGER: I'm the messenger.
- FALSTAFF: Ay, that ye are, lad, that ye are.
There must be conclusions, eh?
Then sing to me the while, my good he-Mercury, sing.
- MESSENGER: A love song or a song of good life?
- FALSTAFF: A love song.
I've had a good life.
- MESSENGER: Which one, my lord?
- FALSTAFF: That strain again, it had a dying fall.
- MESSENGER: My lord?
- FALSTAFF: That piece of song,
that old and antic song you played,
to which I cried 'no more';
Some things seem sweet now,
which were not so before.
Come, but one verse.
Mark it, mistress, it is old and simply sung;
It dallies with the innocence of love;
The days of splendor...
when we were young.
- NARRATOR: Mistress Quickly helps Falstaff sit down.
- FALSTAFF: Ah, Nell, give me thy lips!
Is it not strange that desire
should so many years outlive performance?
Ha, ha!
By my troth I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
Farewell, mistress.
- NARRATOR: They kiss.
- FALSTAFF: Fear not, sweet chuck,
I am a fiction; I cannot die.
- QUICKLY: I pray you, sweet John, love,
'n what when it's time to go?
- FALSTAFF: Then come death and welcome, the Author
wills it so.
A song, I say!
And sack! - QUICKLY: Sir John...
- FALSTAFF: Sh, sh, sh.
Let be.
Let be...
I go to it merrily.
Sing!
- MESSENGER: [sings] * Under the greenwood tree
* Who loves to lie with me
* And turn his merry note
* Unto the sweet bird's throat
* Come hither, come hither, come hither *
* Here shall YOU see
* No enemy
* But winter and rough weather
* Here shall you see
* No enemy
* But winter and rough weather
- NARRATOR: Othello checks on Falstaff.
He nods to Cleopatra.
She goes to Mistress Quickly.
- CLEOPATRA: He's gone, Mistress.
- QUICKLY: Say?
- CLEOPATRA: Sir John.
He's gone.
- QUICKLY: The breaking of so great a thing
should have made a greater crack.
- MESSENGER: Shall I... let the Warders, know, madam?
They can... well...
- QUICKLY: Not yet, lad, not yet.
- NARRATOR: Mistress Quickly sits by Sir John,
and takes his hand.
- JULIET: Would that Master Shakespeare
might write us out of this scene.
- MESSENGER: He cannot write us out of it,
'twas he that wrote us into it.
He has no choice in the matter;
he's got to write from his heart;
to write otherwise t'would be a lie.
For we are the brief and abstract chronicles of the time;
- Indeed,
and 'tis we must hold the mirror up to nature.
- QUICKLY: You are in the right, my young friend.
'Tis your time.
Sir John would often chide me, and bade me
'With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.'
Let us try to do so, and with grace.
We shall have a heavy miss of him,
but come, good friends, for so you are;
when time shall serve,
there will be smiles again.
I prithee, sing.
- MESSENGER: [sings] * Sigh no more, dear ones, sigh no more *
* The Fates are deceivers ever
* One foot in sea and one on shore *
* To one thing constant never
* Then sigh not so, but let them go *
* And be you blithe and bonny
* Converting all your sounds of woe *
* Into hey, nonny nonny
* Sing no more ditties
* Sing no more
* Of dumps so dull and heavy *
* The fraud of Fates was ever so *
* Since summer first was leafy
* Then sigh not so, but let them go *
* And be you blithe and bonny
* Converting all your sounds of woe *
* Into hey, nonny nonny
* Converting all your sounds of woe *
* Into hey, nonny nonny
End of play.
[bright upbeat music]
[clapping]
- Brenda: Hello, everybody, hi, everybody!
Hi.
- Tracy: Bravo, Jimmy.
- Brenda: What? - Tracy: Bravo, Jimmy.
- Brenda: Bravo, Jimmy. The author.
- Brenda: Hi!
- Jim: Thank you all, congratulations.
- Brenda: Good job guys.
Well done, well done, so weird.
I just wanna talk to the audience.
I want them all right here with us.
Is Tim on? - Tim: Yes.
- Tim, hi, Tim, hi Greg. - Hi.
- How are you guys doing? - Good.
We're doing well. - Great.
- Tim: Nice, really nice job.
- Jim: Good job everybody, congratulations.
- Brenda: Yeah, that was, that was amazing.
It was just amazing.
My phone's kind of been lighting up.
So many people watching.
I just want to say hi to everybody.
We had this huge crowd.
There was lots of folks
watching tonight:
like Lee and Sandy Ernst were out there watching,
and Chuk Iwuji was out there watching,
Bob Morgan was out there watching.
Triney, of course, our fan club, Triney and Ted and Mahri
were out there.
But like tons of people, my phone's...
Val and Steve.
So many people.
Chuk just said "Bravo, bravo.
I'm so happy for you guys, so happy for you guys."
And so many of our board is out there.
I wanted to just turn it over Carey.
There's so many questions about the play.
I think there's like 17 comments up here.
- Carey: Hello everyone, it's Carey Cannon.
And yes, lots of versions of, for Jimmy,
when did you start writing this play?
When did you begin writing this piece?
Did you start writing prior to the current pandemic,
was the seed there and the plague was a timely addition?
Was it inspired or influenced by COVID-19?
There are about four end versions of that question.
- Jim: Yeah, no, I started it...
Well, I got home-- I was doing a show down in Florida
with Greg Coffin actually in Florida at the Oslo
and we finished there.
I got home about March 8th or 9th or 10th,
somewhere around there.
And no, I was completely depressed--
I kind of, more depressed than I am usually.
And long story short, I usually write every day no matter what.
For 25, 30 years now,
I always write and I had no desire to write anything.
I was going on about three weeks
of kind of moping around on the porch.
And it was one night Brenda and I were having a cocktail
on the porch.
And she was probably trying to get me out of my misery
and said, well, why don't you write something
about what's going on in the world right now?
And I like, doesn't interest me at all.
Who wants to read about, listen to more sadness?
Then she said, well maybe something about the plague,
during Shakespeare's time, I said like no, no, God no,
it doesn't interest me at all.
And then half-jokingly I just said,
what we should write is like a play about
like Shakespeare's characters out of work like we are--
Bored, you know?
And then,
all of a sudden, it didn't sound so crazy.
And I said yeah,
the Boar's Head Tavern, Mistress Quickly, Falstaff.
And that started to generate the idea.
So I wrote very quickly for me,
so I think I pounded out a very, very rough first draft
in about three weeks.
But I was unemployed, so I was writing every day
for you know, early in the morning,
for eight to 10 hours a day.
So I got a rough draft.
And this was before we even knew
we were doing any Zoom stuff.
This is very early on.
And I was very fortunate because I showed it to the folks
at APT and they thought that might have some promise in it.
And then they said-- then they started doing these readings
and said do you want to do it in the readings
and I said no at first.
I just couldn't get my mind around like showing a new play
on Zoom, where it could be captured for you know and, new
plays are very, you like to nurture them and take care
of them for a while.
But eventually they kind of talked me into it and I said
I had-- need to get support so, so lucky to get Eva
on board with this and I needed a great director
and Tim Ocel I worked with, I know he's good
with new works.
Greg Coffin, I love his work and then they gave me this cast,
whom I wrote the play for.
So yeah, so that's a long story to,
no I did not have this written already.
We developed this over the last eight weeks,
right eight weeks or so?
Give or take.
- Brenda: Yep, about eight.
- Yeah.
- Carey: Along those lines, Jim,
the question about which Shakespearean characters
you decided to include.
How did you decide which characters to bring to life
in this play, says India Paul, from the Asolo.
- Jim: Hi, India, I miss you.
I hope you're well.
Hi, Frank.
I actually only started-- you'll think this is silly--
but I just started with Mistress Quickly and Falstaff
and I waited to see who came in the door,
and that may sound kind of like artsy...
It's not really, it's your imagination as a writer.
You sit down and say the door opens.
And it was-- Othello walked in, and the door opens...
And it's funny because we said like,
no Richard the Third's came to the door.
No Iagos or Edmunds, or...
came.
It was interesting, what did not come
to my imagination unplanned.
But the play's about lots of things, of course,
but originally, you know, the original subtitle
was a play about friendship and for some reason
what was happening in the world
and is happening
in the world right now,
both the pandemic and the social pandemic that we have.
I think, for me started to see who are the real people
that you love in this world that you know are good people
and you want to be around and I think these things
like this really show ourselves to each other.
Cleopatra has a speech about that.
So I guess, the people that walked in the door,
in my imagination, were friends with each other.
And that, and then lots of other stuff developed unconsciously.
- Carey: Triney would like-- - [crosstalk]
- Tim: Can you talk about the Dickens quote?
- Jim: Oh yeah, well, it wasn't a quote.
I was also, this is-- the logic of this play
could be really fun to wrap your mind around.
But, I had written a play some years ago for my friend
and colleague Jim Ridge called "Dickens in America,"
which is about Dickens' American speaking tour that he did,
but I researched Charles Dickens a lot.
And there's a very famous painting of Charles Dickens
asleep at his desk, with, like, a hundred of his different
characters all floating around his head,
and different characters from different books,
you know, Chuzzelwit and Professor Gradgrind and Scrooge,
and all these different characters
kind of talking to themselves in his head.
So that was one of the, the kind of water I swam in
to play with this
was this was Shakespeare dreaming
about all of the characters from his plays,
basically taking
taking control of their own lives
a little bit and doing what they want.
And the original-- one of the subtitles was originally
11 drafts ago was "Shakespeare's Dream."
And with that, I was a little too on the nose for...
- Brenda: Somebody wanted you to call it--
I got a text from someone saying you should call it
"The Messenger." [laughs]
- Jim: Yeah...
- Carey: There is a question there.
There's a question from Jim Winship.
Where did the idea of the messenger come from?
- Jim: He was the first one that came in the door,
I had no idea what he was gonna be, to be honest with you.
And I'm not being facetious about that.
Things happen when you're writing and then Tim and I
and the group, all of us, and
I just want to say I don't know if you knew how blessed
I am to have actors of this caliber, and a design team.
This is our little design team here and speech
and my stage managers to develop a piece.
I just wanted to say that.
It's-- kind of in awe of that.
Because everybody in this room contributed
to making this play.
So things happen like that, the messenger starts to,
"No, maybe there's something more to him"
and we develop him more.
So he just came to life in the development of the play
and started to take on more meaning.
We were like, who's that, he's still there.
Why didn't he leave yet?
And we just kept on developing that theme as it continued.
And what was fun
is writing for actors that I knew--
I know very, very well and writing for actors that have,
Juliet who has played Juliet
and Cleopatra who has played Cleopatra.
I know them very well so I was--
I call it the movie in my head when I was writing.
I was just-- I would let Tracy do what Tracy would,
and I would just literally see Tracy
doing the role in my head.
And then, copy the dictation,
copy down what she did,
so I stole from all of you.
- Brenda: I just wanted to say that like what Brian,
I want to ask you specifically what it felt like
to revisit Falstaff in this manner.
Because, you know, we love your Falstaff
and you've done him several times now in different plays
and different places, and he lives so, so clearly inside you.
I just wanted to know what it felt like to step into this.
I mean, how did this feel to you?
- Brian: It's amazing
to step into his soul again in a new play.
This is sort of like Falstaff in between the cracks
of the Henry histories and the, and the Merry Wives.
I enjoyed it, I felt like I was swimming
in very familiar waters.
And I also felt like there was a little bit of Lear
in there so I mean, it was such a vehicle for me to,
in a way visit and another way explore in this piece.
To me, it feels like a Valentine tour
to Falstaff
and it's very sweet, very sweet to play,
and be a part of.
- Brenda: That's awesome.
It's just awesome.
- Carey: There's a lot of Shakespeare's words in the play
and there are different versions of this question.
And they are, what percentage do you say is Shakespeare's
and what is yours?
How did you choose the plays?
How many plays are those words from?
How did you choose whose mouth those words went into?
Juliet has a lot of Hotspur in her in this,
which some of you enjoyed Juliet's ability
to kind of grab the bull by the horns
there and have a little Hotspur in her.
- Jim: Mm-hmm.
- Brenda: Yeah, I kept getting texts from people.
There were mashups, all the mashups.
They're like, Oh my god, it's dah da dah, dah da dah.
They were like all the mashups were showing up
for all the people who know Shakespeare so well.
It was really fun, I think for them.
So go ahead, Jim.
- Jim: I have no idea how many plays,
I just know my big Shakespeare has about 1,000 Post-It notes
in it and but I don't know, but I would think
I'll bet you about 75 or 80% is Shakespeare verbatim,
but in different contexts.
Cleopatra has Hamlet and Richard the Second and Othello.
And so everybody's saying different lines
from different plays.
And I just think as I've been blessed to be around this work
for over 30 years, and so when I would put the characters
in a situation, either something would come to me,
I played Hotspur twice.
So I knew that kind of, I wanted that,
that came to me easily for Juliet.
And the other ones or I would remember, like one line,
there's a line from this play that sounded right.
And then I would Google that, I would type it in and find
out where it's from and see what I could use of that.
So the research was fun.
When you find something that works and giving Othello
some of Iago's lines and things like that were fun.
And so yeah, but I bet you about 80% of it is verbatim
and then the other 20% is me adapting
Shakespeare's words and twisting them around.
And maybe 5% is just original iambic poetry that I wrote.
But it's pretty much all Shakespeare in there.
- Tim: Occasionally, I did have to ask,
is that from a play or is that you?
- Jim: There's a few things, you know, like Cleopatra's speech.
And there's only one word that I can find
that was not in use at Shakespeare's time,
and I'm not gonna tell anybody what it is.
No, I did try to check that any words that I used
had to be in his vocabulary. - [laughter]
- And there was one that I know of in the play that was not.
I'll find a better word--
- Brenda: Oh, no, you're not gonna tell us?
- Jim: No! - Brenda: For real?
That is such a Jimmy thing to do that,
you're just not going to tell us now.
- Carey: You guys can all guess on the Q&A.
Just throw some guesses out there.
- Jim: There's also only one quote, one adapted quote,
that is not from Shakespeare.
- Brenda: Where's it from?
- Carey: Another-- - Tim: I know.
Brenda: What is it, Tim?
- Tim: The card game stuff, right?
- Jim: Oh, no, you're right.
That is not from Shakespeare,
but that's not the quote I'm talking about.
That is from the 1600s, on what to be wary of
when you're playing Primero with card sharks.
- Carey: There's more really specific questions,
and this one was fun because I was thinking that
when you're listing the ingredients today.
Where did the ingredients from the apothecary come from?
Are they from actual plays or other sources
or from that period?
- Jim: No, that yeah--
I researched supposed remedies for the plague.
There's all kinds of them together.
So I did do a lot of research about the play.
I purposely kept this.
I didn't say it was the plague of 1606 or 1590.
I just said a time of plague.
Because we don't get it, we don't want to get bogged down
into specific where are we in Shakespeare's life?
That's not what the play is about.
- Carey: Okay, we have some guesses though.
- Jim: That was, that was research on the plague itself
and things like putting money in a bowl of vinegar
and putting it outside the door, the waters, the red cross.
That was all research on the actual life
at the time of the plague in London.
- Carey: Marco Barricelli says "a duel of wits."
[indistinct] Tennyson, Marco says "You showed up unarmed."
Ulysses, Tennyson says Bret.
- Jim: You got it, yep, it's Tennyson, Ulysses.
- Carey: Yep, that's Bret Breneman.
Eva, you come from smart people.
[laughter]
Bret actually had a question earlier
that I thought was really interesting.
I'm trying to find it again and it was about Juliet
espousing both altering and being within the author's will.
The sort of existential questions
that when you let characters ask both those questions.
- Jim: That's not from Shakespeare.
[laughing]
- Brenda: Juliet, that's not from Shakespeare.
- Hey Melisa, how are you?
Did, do you like this version of Juliet?
- Melisa: I do, yes. - You like this version of Juliet?
- Melisa: It's amazing, it's great.
It's a really great,
I was just texting Jimmy about it earlier,
like what an epic way to revisit something,
not just that it's a character I love dearly,
but uh, that we've worked on together before.
It was the first role that I played for APT
and then now under these circumstances to work in,
in this format with this character.
This is very meta on that level for me,
but um, but it's great and I love, you know I love
that she's not there for a boy.
- Yep.
- How that she's discussing family matters,
and that was important to me.
And I loved that that was sort of what
she begins her journey with, it's really cool.
- Brenda: Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm.
Beautiful.
- Carey: Tim, we have some questions
about directing on Zoom.
Kevin Aselin, our friend and colleague [indistinct] says--
and there was other versions of this--
Tim, in your work as a director curious to learn if you
[inaudible] directing on Zoom.
What sort of challenges did you confront?
And there's also questions for stage managers
about the challenges of managing this storytelling on Zoom.
- Tim: I would say the biggest thing was to try to decide
how much or little action to do.
And obviously, you saw that we did--
we did not act out a whole lot.
We decided early, Jimmy, I think even,
I mean right from the top that we were gonna have a narrator,
narrating stage direction, we had decided that so to do
a kind of staged reading.
And so a lot of it was interpretational.
Sometimes I would not look at them, because I wanted to hear
the play through our ears.
So the radio, it's actually a really good radio play.
- Mm-hmm.
- Streaming, I challenge you to turn it on and not watch
and hear the play, it's really quite astounding.
And so that was the biggest thing, is that.
And then because it was a new play
to try to listen for any time, um,
either the actors or my direction or the play
seem to lie or not be consistent,
or to actually encourage
those places of contrast, and relationships.
Some of the things that we worked
on in this last week was just actor beats
and how nothing can be transitional.
It all has to be part of the play.
So if there were small three line beats,
we wanted to shape the three line beat,
and then go on to something else.
And we talked a lot about what the movie in our heads
would be, if we were staging.
Like, the movie in my head says this would happen.
And when we talked about actually having images,
that it really did change what the actors did.
So that was really my job is just, it was kind of, in a way,
the same thing, it's like, I just raised my hand
and go "stop" if I think there's a lie happening,
or maybe a better way to do it.
Anytime, I'm distracted or taken out of the piece,
whether that's in terms of action
or in terms of too much or whatever.
But the tricky thing is you're actually playing for a camera
here and you're not on a theater stage.
- Brenda: And listening because--
I mean acting is listening, right?
But it seemed to me, it seems to me watching these readings
over the last six weeks
how much you guys have to be literally just audibly hearing,
trying to lift your choices out of what you're hearing,
not even seeing and hearing.
Is that, how is that,
how is that, Trace, to do that?
I mean, how does that feel like that?
I mean, because you're such responsive actors.
How does it work?
- Tracy: I don't know.
It has been very interesting these eight weeks
to act without a face in front of you.
The faces are there on the screen, but I don't know
how everybody else does it but I pushed
everybody's faces to the side.
We have our scripts right in front of us,
if you haven't watched one of these yet
and heard this in a talk back.
The scripts are in front of us on the screen
and so we're scrolling while we're acting also
so that the next line comes up.
But so in order to keep the words as close to the camera
as possible, we try to, I try to put the people to the side
so that my words are right next to the camera
so it kind of looks like I'm not reading but acting.
But I'm sure y'all can tell when we're reading.
Our eyes go back and forth.
We are not memorized, we are reading.
But because we can't look at the people
if I was looking at them,
I wouldn't be looking at the camera.
It really is about acting with their voices.
But these actors are extraordinary
and we all know each other so it--
they're my family members.
So you know when Nate has a certain tone in his voice
or Brian or May or Sarah or Gavin,
I can see their face in my mind's eye
because I already know them.
So that was a-- that's a gift.
I don't, I think doing this
with strangers would be much more difficult.
I wouldn't necessarily know what that tone meant,
but because I know and love all of these people, um,
I sort of could see their faces, when I heard them.
- Brenda: Yeah, Brian.
- Brian: On the other side of it,
I don't think I will ever get a chance
to whisper Shakespeare.
- [laughter]
- Certainly not at APT. - [laughter]
- [Brian whispering Shakespeare]
- Brenda: No, it's true, it's so true.
- Brian: It's amazing--
- Carey: We have a bunch of questions for Greg
or comments for Greg.
David Daniels: "Hi, do you just have these tunes
in your pocket?
Pull them out when you need one?
Marco Barricelli says, "Hello, it's been 100 years." - Marco!
Jennifer Vosters loves the soundscape
and heard some "Book of Will" in there.
What was the process.
- Greg: A wee bit of "Book of Will."
What a--
Thank you all, what a gift to be able and how increasingly
rare to write music for a Shakespeare play
between 1590 and 1610.
So it was great to be able to kind of listen to a bunch
of research and be able to know my voices.
I've worked with both Brian and Nate before so,
and it was a wonderful stretch.
And it was wonderful to work with Jimmy
on the placement of the songs
and they come from so many different plays,
and so many other situations too.
To challenge a melody of a song to be something
that must serve this moment and not a moment from, from a
a play that it, that it began in.
It's really a wonderful time.
And especially with "Sigh No More."
To be able to take a piece
that would move us out of the very present moment
of Falstaff's passing and into a charge
to the, to the audience.
It was a great time.
I had a really fun time writing.
- Brenda: I really love that contemporary feeling on that
last song after they kind of hand the torch over
to the young people.
I kind of felt that transition in that moment
and that's really beautiful.
I didn't see that in the play when we,
when you first were writing that.
It's just a, it was gorgeous.
Gives you kind of hope at the end of the play.
I know all of us are weeping and weeping watching this.
Like, everyone's crying, sending the crying emojis
and stuff on the phones,
and it's just a really emotional play.
Especially if you love Shakespeare, right?
And I wonder how it is for the folks that were watching,
maybe everybody watching was all Shakespeare fans.
I wonder how that plays to people
who don't know, and how many people?
I know when you first read it, Tim,
you were saying like you, you're kind of it's clever enough
that you're like, "oh, that line's from, that's 12th Night,
That's dah, dah, dah," and I wondered how that,
how people were reacting to listening to it.
I wish they could answer in the Q&A sections, let us know,
how that went for them.
Do you know I'm saying about, Tim,
when you first started reading the play.
- Yeah.
- And how it's morphed now, away from that because the story
is so much stronger. - Tim: Yeah.
Yeah, in working on the play,, we never reference the plays
that they're from, the characters, you know.
And the only time I think
we actually seem to quote is Nate, yeah,
In the lesson about acting. - Brenda: Yes.
- Tim: He says and Shakespeare says...,"
and "Will Shakespeare said this."
And he seems to quote something that he's heard.
- Mm-hmm.
- Jim: Yeah, if we're successful, if I'm successful
with the play, people will not be quote, saying, doing
"Oh, that's from this play."
- Brenda: Right. - Jim: But they're doing that.
Of course, those of us in the business steeped,
we will smile inside, but hopefully for 80% of the audience,
they'll be watching people and their lives
and will not be doing that.
As we develop this, if we find lines
like that we will cut them.
[laughing]
- Tim: I was just gonna say it was only a couple weeks to go
that we actually stumbled on "Sigh No More," right?
- Jim: Yeah, we went through a few different songs, yeah.
And there were things, there were quite a few lines that got
in there at first, and they were just too on the nose,
or they sounded too much like, Oh, you would use that there.
But yeah, I mean it's still a brand new play.
So if it were ever to see a production, we would continue
to develop it, of course.
- Carey: We do have some feedback from the audience
about the Shakespeare and Jan Gist,
our dear Jan says, "It was fun to recognize which lines
"came from which plays and to recognize lines
"but not be able to place them.
What a delight."
My cousin Sarah from, who's calling from California,
said, "As someone who isn't well-versed
"in Shakespeare, it didn't matter.
"The feel, the language, the rhythm of the language totally
drew me in and I kept thinking I need to take a class."
[laughing]
- Brenda: Yeah, I got a text from Val Lance.
He said "The play drawn from different plays
"but never felt like a gimmick.
It just-- the story just kept, just took over."
And I feel like they just all so, they're all so smart.
And I love to hear what they have to say,
every one of them, even the Messenger.
- Jim: Yeah, the danger in a play like this,
it does get gimmicky or get clever.
And thanks to everybody in the cast and Tim,
we've taken pains to try and decipher
all those potential pitfalls.
- Brenda: Anything else?
- Carey: We're getting close but I, the um, yeah, other
feedback on the Shakespeare, it started out as an exercise
recognizing the lines.
The play came itself, to be itself.
Tears came, lines belonged to the characters that spoke them.
The mix of Shakespeare was not distracting.
Eva, if you have any, speaking to text coaching a play
that is and isn't Shakespeare,
do you have any words about the language and working
with these actors on this play?
- Eva: I mean, I approached it the same,
with the remit that Tim and Jim and I talked about
initially, which was, we don't wanna get sidetracked
as to "Well, in the play, this is, in the, in the original,
this is what that is about."
You know, it was just taking
what is written in this moment for this character in this play,
and doing what you would normally do in terms
of discovering, using all of the tools that we have
to do Shakespearean text work, antithesis
and what is the saying
and where are the switches and changes to take us
to the next beat and all of that work was the same.
We just had this immensely rich tapestry to work with,
that also had Easter eggs.
[laughing]
- Carey: We do, Jacki Singleton, our wonderful stage manager
is letting me know we're at, we're just about at time
and I just wanted to share that both Bob Birkhauser
and Jan Swenson want to know when they can see
this on the stage. [laughs]
Love that both Bob and Jan are like,
"When, when can we see it?"
- Brenda: From soon as we can be together,
we'll try to figure out how to do this play on the stage.
Feels like it's of its time, right?
I hope that everybody enjoyed tonight.
I think we have to say goodbye
and I don't wanna say goodbye cause I know
we're not going to do this again.
So, it's just been such a gift and I think we should try
to share all these comments.
There's so many comments.
Try to figure out how to let the actors all know what this has meant.
I know they're all sitting in their own homes in front of a screen.
We can't see and feel you guys but it's been such a gift.
Thank you, thank you everybody.
Thank you to the audience showing up every Sunday.
We had 300 people on, over 300 people on tonight.
So thank you to the most amazing audience!
We love you and, and we will be in touch.
We will see you, stay tuned, and get on PBS
and watch, and send a link and,
if anybody wants to say anything.
Anybody, anybody, Sarah Day, do you want to say something?
Want to say something, want to say goodbye?
You just wanna cry over there in your corner? [laughs]
I know, I see you, I see you.
- Brian: I'll say, this has been so amazing to be a part of.
I hope we never ever have to do this again.
- [laughter]
- But if we do, I think we can do this.
- Brenda: Yeah.
- Brian: But I hope it never comes to that,
because it's gonna be so sweet
when we actually get on the stage
and get up in front of people in person.
It's gonna be so much sweeter,
but this has been fantastic.
- Tracy: You're all gonna get such a hug.
- Brenda: Yeah. [laughs]
That's what we'll do at the top of the hill.
We'll just hug everybody at the top of the hill as they come up.
- [laughter]
- I can't wait to be outside in the stars.
I've just missed the night.
I missed the nights so, but this is great.
All right, I guess it's time to say goodbye.
- Thank you, everybody.
- See you someday. - See you up the hill.
Thank you. - Bye!
- We'll see you up the hill.
Take care, everybody take care.
* [bright upbeat music]
- Narrator: Funding for APT's "Out of the Woods"
is provided by Boardman Clark Law Firm,
Arcadia Books,
Dane Arts,
Nancy A. McDaniel,
Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin,
Orange Tree Imports,
Wilson Creek Pottery,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.