HAMLET, ROS and GUIL talking, the continuation of the previous scene. Their conversation, on the move, is indecipherable at first. The first illegible line is HAMLET’s, coming at the end of a short speech ? see Shakespeare Act II, scene ii.
HAMLET: S’blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could take it out. (A flourish from the TRAGEDIANS’ band.)
GUIL: There are the players.
HAMLET: Gentlemen, you are welcome in Elsinore. Your hands, come then. (He takes their hands.) The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players (which I tell you must show fairly outwards) should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome. (About to leave.) But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
GUIL: In what, my dear lord?
HAMLET: I am but mad north north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. (POLUNIUS enters, as GUIL turns away.)
POLONIUS: Well be you gentlemen.
HAMLET (to ROS): Mark you, Guildenstern (uncertainly to GUIL) and you too; at each ear a hearer. That great baby you see there is not yet out of swaddling clouts… (He takes ROS upstage with him, talking together.)
POLONIUS: My Lord! I have news to tell you.
HAMLET (releasing ROS and mimicking): My lord, I have news to tell you… When Rocius was an actor in Rome…
(ROS comes down to re-join GUIL.)
POLONIUS (as he follows HAMLET out): The actors are come hither my lord.
HAMLET: Buzz, buzz.
(Exeunt HAMLET and POLONIUS.)
(ROS and GUIL ponder. Each reluctant to speak first.) GUIL: Hm?
ROS: Yes?
GUIL: What?
ROS: I thought you… GUIL: No.
ROS: Ah.
(Pause.)
GUIL: I think we can say we made some headway. ROS: You think so?
GUIL: I think we can say that.
ROS: I think we can say he made us look ridiculous. GUIL: We played it close to the chest of course.
ROS (derisively): “Question and answer. Old ways are the best ways”! He was scoring off us all down the line. GUIL: He caught us on the wrong foot once or twice, perhaps, but I thought we gained some ground.
ROS (simply): He murdered us. GUIL: He might have had the edge.
ROS (roused): Twenty-seven – three, and you think he might have had the edge?! He murdered us. GUIL: What about our evasions?
ROS: Oh, our evasions were lovely. “Were you sent for?” he says. “My lord, we were sent for…” I didn’t where to put myself.
GUIL: He had six rhetoricals –
ROS: It was question and answer, all right. Twenty-seven questions he got out in ten minutes, and answered three. I was waiting for you to delve. “When is he going to start delving?” I asked myself.
GUIL: – And two repetitions.
ROS: Hardly a leading question between us. GUIL: We got his symptoms, didn’t we?
ROS: Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half
didn’t mean anything at all.
GUIL: Thwarted ambition – a sense of grievance, that’s my diagnosis.
ROS: Six rhetorical and two repetitions, leaving nineteen of which we answered fifteen. And what did we get in return? He’s depressed!… Denmark’s a prison and he’d rather live in a nutshell; some shadow-play
about the nature of ambition, which never got down to cases, and finally one direct question which might have led somewhere, and led in fact to his illuminating claim to tell a hawk from a handsaw.
(Pause.)
GUIL: When the wind is southerly. ROS: And when the weather is clear. GUIL: And when it isn’t he can’t.
ROS: He’s at the mercy of the elements. (Licks his finger and holds it up – facing audience.) Is that southerly? (They stare at the audience.)
GUIL: It doesn’t look southerly. What made you think so? ROS: I didn’t say I think so. It could be northerly for all I know. GUIL: I wouldn’t have thought so.
ROS: Well, if you’re going to be dogmatic.
GUIL: Wait a minute – we came from roughly south according to a rough map.
ROS: I see. Well, which way did we come in? (GUIL looks around vaguely.) Roughly. GUIL (clears his throat): In the morning the sun would be easterly. I think we can assume that. ROS: That it’s morning?
GUIL: If it is, and the sun is over there (his right as he faces the audience) for instance, that (front) would be northerly. On the other hand, if it’s not morning and the sun is over there (his left)… that… (lamely) would still be northerly. (Picking up.) To put it another way, if we came from down there (front) and it is morning, the sun would be up there (his left), and if it is actually over there (his right) and it’s still morning, we must have come from up there (behind him), and if that is southerly (his left) and the sun is really over there (front), then it’s afternoon.
However, if none of these is the case – ROS: Why don’t you go and have a look?
GUIL: Pragmatism?! – is that all you have to offer? You seem to have no conception of where we stand! You won’t find the answer written down for you in the bowl of a compass – I can tell you that. (Pause.) Besides, you can never tell this far north – it’s probably dark out there.
ROS: I merely suggest that the position of the sun, if it is out, would give you a rough idea of the time; alternatively, the clock, if it is going, would give you a rough idea of the position of the sun. I forget which you’re trying to establish.
GUIL: I’m trying to establish the direction of the wind. ROS: There isn’t any wind. Draught, yes.
GUIL: In that case, the origin. Trace it to the source and it might give us a rough idea of the way we came in – which might give us a rough idea of south, for further reference.
ROS: It’s coming up through the floor. (He studies the floor.) That can’t be south, can it? GUIL: That’s not direction. Lick your toe and wave it around a bit.
(ROS considers the distance to his foot.) ROS: No, I think you’d have to lick it for me. (Pause.)
GUIL: I’m prepared to let the whole matter drop. ROS: Or I could lick yours, of course.
GUIL: No thank you.
ROS: I’ll even wave it around for you.
GUIL (down ROS’s throat): What in God’s name is the matter with you? ROS: Just being friendly.
GUIL (retiring): Somebody might come in. It’s what we’re counting on, after all. Ultimately. (Good pause.)
ROS: Perhaps they’ve all trampled each other to death in the rush. Give them a shout. Something provocative.
Intrigue them.
GUIL: Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are… condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one – that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it’ll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we’d know that we were lost. (He sits.) A Chinaman of the T’ang Dynasty – and, by which definition, a philosopher – dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him, in his two-fold security.
(A good pause. ROS leaps up and bellows at the audience.) ROS: Fire!
(GUIL jumps up.) GUIL: Where?
ROS: It’s all right – I’m demonstrating the misuse of free speech. To prove that it exists. (He regards the audience, that is the direction, with contempt – and other directions, then front again.) Not a move. They should burn to death in their shoes.
(ROS takes out one of his coins. Spins it. Catches it. Looks at it.
Replaces it.)
GUIL: What was it? ROS: What?
GUIL: Heads or tails?
ROS: Oh. I didn’t look.
GUIL: Yes you did.
ROS: Oh, did I? (He takes a coin, studies it.) Quite right – it rings a bell. GUIL: What’s the last thing you remember?
ROS: I don’t wish to be reminded of it.
GUIL: We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
(ROS approaches him brightly, holding a coin between finger and thumb.
He covers it with the other hand, draws his fist apart and holds them for GUIL. GUIL considers them. Indicates the left hand, ROS opens it to show it empty.)
ROS: No.
(Repeat process. GUIL indicates left hand again. ROS shows it empty.) Double bluff!
(Repeat process – GUIL taps one hand, then the other hand, quickly. ROS inadvertently shows that both are empty. ROS laughs as GUIL turns upstage. ROS stops laughing, looks around his left, pats his clothes, puzzled.)
(POLONIUS breaks that up by entering upstage followed by the TRAGEDIANS and HAMLET.)
POLONIUS (entering): Come, sirs.
HAMLET: Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow. (Aside to the PLAYER, who is the last of the TRAGEDIANS.)
Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play “The Murder of Gonzago”? PLAYER: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?
PLAYER: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.
(The PLAYER crossing downstage, notes ROS and GUIL. Stops. HAMLET crossing downstage addresses them without a pause.)
HAMLET: My good friends, I’ll leave you till tonight. You are welcome to Elsinore. ROS: Good, my lord.
(HAMLET goes.)
GUIL: So you’ve caught up. PLAYER (coldly): Not yet, sir.
GUIL: Now mind your tongue, or we’ll have it out and throw the rest of you away, like a nightingale at a Roman feast.
PLAYER: Took the very words out of my mouth. GUIL: You’d be lost for words.
ROS: You’d be tongue-tied.
GUIL: Like a mute in a monologue.
ROS: Like a nightingale at a Roman feast. GUIL: Your diction will go to pieces.
ROS: Your lines will be cut. GUIL: To dumbshows.
ROS: And dramatic pauses.
GUIL: You’ll never find your tongue. ROS: Lick your lips.
GUIL: Taste your tears.
ROS: Your breakfast.
GUIL: You won’t know the difference. ROS: There won’t be any.
GUIL: We’ll take the very words out of your mouth. ROS: So you’ve caught up.
GUIL: So you’ve caught up.
PLAYER (tops): Not yet! (Bitterly.) You left us.
GUIL: Ah! I’d forgotten – you performed a dramatic spectacle by the wayside – a thing much thought of in the New Testament. How did yours compare as an impromptu?
PLAYER: Badly – neither witnessed nor reported.
GUIL: Yes, I’m sorry we had to miss it. I hope you didn’t leave anything out – I’d be furious to think I didn’t miss all of it.
(The PLAYER, progressively aggrieved, now burst out.)
PLAYER: We can’t look each other in the face! (Pause, more in control.) You don’t understand the humiliation of it – to be tricked out of a single assumption, which makes our existence viable – that somebody is watching…
The plot was two corpses gone before we caught sight of ourselves, stripped naked in the middle of nowhere and pouring ourselves down a bottomless well.
ROS: Is that thirty eight?
PLAYER (lost): There we are – demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance – and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air. We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. (He rounds on them.) Don’t you see?! We’re actors – we’re the opposite of people! (They recoil nonplussed, his voice calms.) Think, in your head, now, think of the most… private… secret… intimate… thing you have ever
done secure in the knowledge of its privacy… (He gives them – and the audience – a good pause. ROS takes a shifty look.) Are you thinking of it? (He strikes with his voice and his head.) Well, I saw you do it!
(ROS leaps up, dissembling madly.)
ROS: You never! It’s a lie! (He catches himself with a giggle in a vacuum and sits down again.)
PLAYER: We’re actors… We pledged our identities, secure in the conventions of our trade; that someone would be watching. And than, gradually, no one was. We were caught, high and dry. It was not until the murder’s long soliloquy that we were able to look around; frozen we were in the profil, our eyes searched you out, first confidently, then hesitantly, then desperately as each patch of turf, each log, each exposed corned in
every direction proved uninhabited, and all the while the murderous King addressed the horizon with his dreary interminable guilt… Our heads began to move, wary as lizards, the corpse of unsullied Rosalinda peeped through his fingers, and the King faltered. Even then, habit and a stubborn trust that our audience spied upon us from behind the nearest bush, forced our bodies to blunder on long after they had emptied of meaning, until like runaway carts they dragged to a halt. No one came forward. No one shouted at us. The silence was unbreakable, it imposed itself upon us; it was obscene.
We took off our crowns and swords and cloth of gold and moved silent on the road to Elsinore. (Silence. Then GUIL claps solo with slow measured irony.)
GUIL: Brilliantly re-created – if these eyes could weep!… Rather strong on metaphor, mind you. No criticism – only a matter of taste. And so here you are – with a vengeance. That’s a figure of speech… isn’t it? Well
let’s say we’ve made up for it, for you may have no doubt whom to thank for your performance at the court.
ROS: We are counting on you to take him out of himself. You are the pleasures which we draw him on to – (he escapes a fractional giggle but recovers immediately) and by that I don’t mean your usual filth; you can’t .
treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires. They know nothing of that and you know nothing of them, to your mutual survival. So give him a good clean show suitable for all the family, or you can rest assured you’ll
be playing the tavern tonight. GUIL: Or the night, after. ROS: Or not.
PLAYER: We already have an entry here. And always have had. GUIL: You’ve played for him before?
PLAYER: Yes, sir.
ROS: And what’s his bent?
PLAYER: Classical.
ROS: Saucy!
GUIL: What will you play?
PLAYER: “The Murder of Gonzago”. GUIL: Full of fine cadence and corpses. PLAYER: Pirated from the Italian….
ROS: What is it about?
PLAYER: It’s about a King and Queen…. GUIL: Escapism! What else?
PLAYER: Blood – –
GUIL: – Love and rhetoric. PLAYER: Yes. (Going.) GUIL: Where are you going?
PLAYER: I can come and go as I please.
GUIL: You’re evidently a man who knows his way around. PLAYER: I’ve been here before.
GUIL: We’re still finding our feet.
PLAYER: I should concentrate on not losing your heads. GUIL: Do you speak from knowledge?
PLAYER: Precedent.
GUIL: You’ve been here before.
PLAYER: And I know which way the wind is blowing.
GUIL: Operating on two levels, are we?! How clever! I expect it comes
naturally to you, being in the business so to speak.
(The PLAYER’s grave face does not change. He makes to move off again.
GUIL for the second time cuts him off.)
The truth is, we value your company, for want of any other. We have been left so much to our own devices – after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other people’s.
PLAYER: Uncertainty is the normal state. You’re nobody special. (He makes to leave again. GUIL loses his cool.)
GUIL: But for God’s sake what are we supposed to do?
PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That’s what people do. You can’t go through life questioning your situation at every turn.
GUIL: But we don’t know what’s going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don’t know how to act. PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you’re here at least.
GUIL: We only know what we’re told, and that’s little enough. And for all we know it isn’t even true.
PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It’s the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn’t make any difference
so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume?
ROS: Hamlet is not himself, outside or in. We have to glean what afflicts him.
GUIL: He doesn’t give much away. PLAYER: Who does, nowadays? GUIL: He’s – melancholy.
PLAYER: Melancholy?
ROS: Mad.
PLAYER: How is he mad?
ROS: Ah. (To GUIL.) How is he mad? GUIL: More morose than mad, perhaps. PLAYER: Melancholy.
GUIL: Moody.
ROS: He has moods.
PLAYER: Of moroseness?
GUIL: Madness. And yet.
ROS: Quite.
GUIL: For instance.
ROS: He talks to himself, which might be madness. GUIL: If he didn’t talk sense, which he does.
ROS: Which suggests the opposite. PLAYER: Of what?
(Small pause.)
GUIL: I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder
than a man talking nonsense not to himself.
ROS: Or just as mad. GUIL: Or just as mad. ROS: And he does both. GUIL: So there you are. ROS: Stark raving sane. (Pause.)
PLAYER: Why?
GUIL: Ah. (To ROS.) Why?
ROS: Exactly.
GUIL: Exactly what? . ROS: Exactly why.
GUIL: Exactly why what?
ROS: What?
GUIL: Why?
ROS: Why what, exactly?
GUIL: Why is he mad?!
ROS: I don’t know! (Beat.)
PLAYER: The old man thinks he’s in love with his daughter. ROS (appalled): Good God! We’re out of our depth here.
PLAYER: No, no, no – he hasn’t got a daughter – the old man thinks he’s in love with his daughter. ROS: The old man is?
PLAYER: Hamlet, in love with the old man’s daughter, the old man thinks. ROS: Ha! It’s beginning to make sense! Unrequited passion!
(The PLAYER moves.)
GUIL (Fascist): Nobody leaves this room! (Pause, lamely.) Without a very good reason. PLAYER: Why not?
GUIL: All this strolling about is getting too arbitrary by half – I’m rapidly losing my grip. From now on reason will prevail.
PLAYER: I have lines to learn. GUIL: Pass!
(The PLAYER passes into one of the wings. ROS cups his hands and shouts into the opposite one.) ROS: Next!
(But no one comes.)
GUIL: What did you expect?
ROS: Something … someone … nothing. (They sit facing front.) Are you hungry?
GUIL: No, are you?
ROS (thinks): No. You remember that coin? GUIL: No.
ROS: I think I lost it. GUIL: What coin?
ROS: I don’t remember exactly. (Pause.)
GUIL: Oh, that coin … clever. ROS: I can’t remember how I did it.
GUIL: It probably comes natural to you. ROS: Yes, I’ve got a show-stopper there. GUIL: Do it again.
(Slight pause.)
ROS: We can’t afford it.
GUIL: Yes, one must think of the future. ROS: It’s the normal thing.
GUIL: To have one. One is, after all, having it all the time… now… and now… and now….
ROS: It could go on for ever. Well, not for ever, I suppose. (Pause.) Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?
GUIL: No.
ROS: Nor do I, really…. It’s silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead … which should make a difference …
shouldn’t it? I mean, you’d never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box.
Not that I’d like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air – you’d wake up dead, for a start and
then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That’s the bit I don’t like, frankly. That’s why I don’t think of it…. (GUIL stirs restlessly, pulling his cloak round him.)
Because you’d be helpless, wouldn’t you? Stuffed in a box like that, I mean you’d be in there for ever. Even taking into account the fact that you’re dead, really … ask yourself, if I asked you straight off – I’m
going to stuff you in this box now, would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally, you’d prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. I expect. You’d have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking –
well, at least I’m not dead! In a minute someone’s going to bang on the lid and tell me to come out. (Banging on the floor with his fists.) “Hey you, whatsyername! Come out of there!”
GUIL (jumps up savagely): You don’t have to flog it to death! (Pause.)
ROS: I wouldn’t think about it, if I were you. You’d only get depressed. (Pause.) Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where’s it going to end? (Pause, then brightly.) Two early Christians chanced to meet in Heaven. “Saul of Tarsus yet!” cried one. “What are you doing here?!” … “Tarsus-Schmarsus”, replied the other, “I’m Paul already.”
(ROS stands up restlessly and flaps his arms.)
They don’t care. We count for nothing. We could remain silent till we’re green in the face, they wouldn’t come. GUIL: Blue, red.
ROS: A Christian, a Moslem and a Jew chanced to meet in a closed carriage…. “Silverstein!” cried the Jew, “Who’s your friend?” … “His name’s Abdullah”, replied the Moslem, “but he’s no friend of mine since he
became a convert.” (He leaps up again, stamps his foot and shouts into the wings.) All right, we know you’re in there! Come out talking! (Pause.) We have no control. None at all…. (He paces.) Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one, a moment, in childhood when it first occurred to you that you don’t go on for ever. It must have been shattering – stamped into one’s memory. And yet I can’t remember it. It never occurred to me at all. What does one make of that? We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the words for it, before we know that there are words, out we come, bloodied and squalling with the knowledge that for all the compasses in the world, there’s only one direction, and time is its only measure. (He reflects, getting more desperate and rapid.) A Hindu, a Buddhist and a lion-tamer chanced to meet, in a circus on the Indo-Chinese border. (He breaks out.) They’re taking us for granted! Well, I won’t stand for it! In future, notice will be taken. (He wheels again to face into the wings.) Keep out, then! I forbid anyone to
enter! (No one comes – Breathing heavily.) That’s better…. (Immediately, behind him a grand procession enters, principally
CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, POLONIUS and OPHELIA. CLAUDIUS takes ROS’s elbow as he passes and is immediately deep in conversation: the context is Shakespeare
Act III, Scene i. GUIL still faces front as CLAUDIUS, ROS, etc., pass upstage and turn.)
GUIL: Death followed by eternity … the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought.
(He turns upstage in time to take over the conversation with CLAUDIUS. GERTRUDE and ROS head downstage.)
GERTRUDE: Did he receive you well? ROS: Most like a gentleman.
GUIL (returning in time to take it up): But with much forcing of his disposition.
ROS (a flat lie and he knows it and shows it, perhaps catching GUIL’s eye): Niggard of question, but of our demands most free in his reply.
GERTRUDE: Did you assay him to any pastime? ROS: Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o’erraught on the way: of these we told him And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it. They are here about the court, And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him.
POLONIUS: ‘Tis most true
And he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties To hear and see the matter.
CLAUDIUS: With all my heart, and it doth content me To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge And drive his purpose into these delights. ROS: We shall, my lord.
CLAUDIUS (leading out procession):
Sweet Gertrude, leave us, too,
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as t’were by accident, may here Affront Ophelia….
(Exeunt CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE.)
ROS (peevish): Never a moment’s peace! In and out, on and off, they’re coming at us from all sides. GUIL: You’re never satisfied.
ROS: Catching us on the trot Why can’t we go by them!
GUIL: What’s the difference? ROS: I’m going.
(ROS pulls his cloak round him. GUIL ignores him. Without confidence ROS heads upstage. He looks out and comes back quickly.)
He’s coming.
GUIL: What’s he doing? ROS: Nothing.
GUIL: He must be doing something. ROS: Walking.
GUIL: On his hands?
ROS: No, on his feet.
GUIL: Stark naked?
ROS: Fully dressed.
GUIL: Selling toffee apples?
ROS: Not that I noticed.
GUIL: You could be wrong? ROS: I don’t think so. (Pause.)
GUIL: I can’t for the life of me see how we’re going to get into conversation.
(HAMLET enters upstage, and pauses, weighing up the pros and cons of making his quietus.) (ROS and GUIL watch him.)
ROS: Nevertheless, I suppose one might say that this was a chance…. One might well … accost him Yes, it
definitely looks like a chance to me…. Something on the lines of a direct informal approach man to man
… straight from the shoulder…. Now look here, what’s it all about sort of thing. Yes. Yes, this looks like one to be
grabbed with both hands, I should say … if I were asked…. No point in looking at a gift horse till you see the whites
of its eyes, etcetera. (He has moved towards HAMLET but his nerve fails. He returns.) We’re overawed, that’s our trouble. When it comes to the point we succumb to their personality….
(OPHELIA enters, with prayerbook, a religious procession of one.) HAMLET: Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
(At his voice she has stopped for him, he catches her up.)
OPHELIA: Good my lord, how does your honour for this many a day? HAMLET: I humbly thank you – well, well, well.
(They disappear talking into the wing.) ROS: It’s like living in a public park!
GUIL: Very impressive. Yes, I thought your direct informal approach was going to stop this thing dead in its tracks there. If I might make a suggestion – shut up and sit down. Stop being perverse.
ROS (near tears): I’m not going to stand for it!
(A FEMALE FIGURE, ostensibly the QUEEN, enters. ROS marches up behind her, puts his hands over her eyes and says with a desperate frivolity.)
ROS: Guess who?!
PLAYER (having appeared in a downstage corner): Alfred!
(ROS lets go, spins around. He had been holding ALFRED, in his robe and blonde wig. PLAYER is in the downstage corner still. ROS comes down to that exit. The PLAYER does not budge. He and ROS stand toe to toe.)
ROS: Excuse me.
(The PLAYER lifts his downstage foot. ROS bends to put his hand on the floor. The PLAYER lowers his foot.
ROS screams and leaps away.) PLAYER (gravely): I beg your pardon. GUIL (to ROS): What did he do?
PLAYER: I put my foot down. ROS: My hand was on the floor!
GUIL: You put your hand under his foot? ROS: I – –
GUIL: What for?
ROS: I thought – – (Grabs GUIL.) Don’t leave me!
(He makes a break for an exit. A TRAGEDIAN dressed as a king enters, ROS recoils, breaks for the opposite wing. Two cloaked tragedians enter. ROS tries again but another tragedian enters, and ROS retires to midstage. The PLAYER claps his hands matter-of-factly.)
PLAYER: Right! We haven’t got much time. GUIL: What are you doing?
PLAYER: Dress rehearsal. Now if you two wouldn’t mind just moving back… there … good (To
TRAGEDIANS.) Everyone ready? And for goodness sake, remember what we’re doing. (To ROS and GUIL.) We always use the same
costumes more or less, and they forget what they are supposed to be in you see…. Stop picking your nose, Alfred. When Queens have to they do it by a cerebral process passed down in the blood. Good. Silence! Off we go!
PLAYER-KING: Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart – – (PLAYER jumps up angrily.)
PLAYER: No, no, no! Dumbshow first, your confounded majesty! (To ROS and GUIL.) They’re a bit out of practice, but they always pick up wonderfully for the deaths – it brings out the poetry in them.
GUIL: How nice.
PLAYER: There’s nothing more unconvincing than an, unconvincing death. GUIL: I’m sure.
(PLAYER claps his hands.) PLAYER: Act One – moves now.
(The mime. Soft music from a recorder. PLAYER-KING and PLAYER-QUEEN embrace. She kneels and makes a show of protestation to him. He takes her up, declining his head upon her neck. He lies down. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him.)
GUIL: What is the dumbshow for?
PLAYER: Well, it’s a device, really – it makes the action that follows more or less comprehensible; you understand, we are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.
(The mime (continued) – enter another. He takes off the SLEEPER’s crown, kisses it. He had brought in a small bottle of liquid. He pours the poison in the SLEEPER’s ear, and leaves him. The sleeper convulses heroically, dying.)
ROS: Who was that?
PLAYER: The King’s brother and uncle to the Prince. GUIL: Not exactly fraternal.
PLAYER: Not exactly avuncular, as time goes on.
(The QUEEN returns, makes passionate action, finding the KING dead. The POISONER comes in again, attended by two others (the two in cloaks). The POISONER seems to console with her. The dead body is carried away. The POISONER woos the QUEEN with gifts. She seems harsh awhile but in the end accepts his love. End of mime, at which point, the wail of a woman in
torment and OPHELIA appears, wailing, closely followed by HAMLET in a hysterical state, shouting at her, circling her, both midstage.)
HAMLET: Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hath made me mad! (She falls on her knees weeping.)
I say we will have no more marriage! (His voice drops to include the
TRAGEDIANS, who have frozen.) Those that are married already (he leans close to the PLAYER-QUEEN and POISONER, speaking with quiet edge) all but one shall live. (He smiles briefly at them without mirth, and starts to back out, his parting shot rising again.) The rest shall keep as they are. (As he leaves, OPHELIA tottering upstage, he speaks into her ear a quick clipped sentence.) To a nunnery, go.
(He goes out. OPHELIA falls on her knees upstage, her sobs barely
audible. A slight silence.)
PLAYER-KING: Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart – –
(CLAUDIUS enters with POLONIUS and goes over to OPHELIA and lifts her to her feet. The TRAGEDIANS jump back with heads inclined.)
CLAUDIUS: Love? His affections do not that way tend, Or what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul o’er which his melancholy sits on brood, and I do doubt the hatch and the disclose will be some danger; which for to
prevent I have in quick determination thus set it down: he shall with speed to England….
(Which carries the three of them – CLAUDIUS, POLONIUS, OPHELIA – out of sight. The PLAYER moves, clapping his hands for attention.)
PLAYER: Gentlemen! (They look at him.) It doesn’t seem to be coming. We are not getting it at all. (To GUIL.) What did you think?
GUIL: What was I supposed to think?
PLAYER (to TRAGEDIANS): You’re not getting across! (ROS had gone halfway up to OPHELIA; he returns.) ROS: That didn’t look like love to me.
GUIL: Starting from scratch again…. PLAYER (to TRAGEDIANS): It was a mess.
ROS (to GUIL): It’s going to be chaos on the night. GUIL: Keep back – we’re spectators.
PLAYER: Act two! Positions!
GUIL: Wasn’t that the end?
PLAYER: Do you call that an ending? – with practically everyone on his feet? My goodness no – over your dead body.
GUIL: How am I supposed to take that?
PLAYER: Lying down. (He laughs briefly and in a second has never laughed in his life.) There’s a design at work in all art – surely you know that? Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.
GUIL: And what’s that, in this case?
PLAYER: It never varies – we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies. GUIL: Marked?
PLAYER: Between “just desserts” and “tragic irony” we are given quite a lot of scope for our particular talent.
Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they reasonably get. (He switches on a smile.)
GUIL: Who decides?
PLAYER (switching off his smile): Decides? It is written. (He turns away. GUIL grabs him and spins him back violently.) (Unflustered.) Now if you’re going to be subtle, we’ll miss each other in the dark. I’m referring
to oral tradition. So to speak. (GUIL releases him.)
We’re tragedians, you see. We follow directions-there is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means. (Calling.)
Positions!
(The TRAGEDIANS have taken up positions for the continuation of the mime: which in this case means a love scene, sexual and passionate, between the QUEEN and the POISONER/KING.)
PLAYER: Go!
(The lovers begin. The PLAYER contributes a breathless commentary for ROS and GUIL.)
Having murdered his brother and wooed the widow-the poisoner mounts the throne! Here we see him and his queen give rein to their unbridled passion! She little knowing that the man she holds in her arms–!
ROS: Oh, I say-here-really! You can’t do that! PLAYER: Why not?
ROS: Well, really-I mean, people want to be entertained-they don’t come expecting sordid and gratuitous filth. PLAYER: You’re wrong – they do! Murder, seduction and incest – what do you want -jokes?
ROS: I want a good story, with a beginning, middle and end. PLAYER (to GUIL): And you?
GUIL: I’d prefer art to mirror life, if it’s all the same to you. PLAYER: It’s all the same to me, sir. (To the grappling LOVERS.)
All right, no need to indulge yourselves. (They get up-To GUIL.) I come on in a minute. Lucianus, nephew to the king! (Turns his attention to the
TRAGEDIANS.) Next!
(They disport themselves to accommodate the next piece of mime, which consists of the PLAYER himself exhibiting an excitable anguish (choreographed, stylized) leading to an impassioned scene with the QUEEN (cf. “The Closet Scene”, Shakespeare Act III, Scene iv) and a very stylized reconstruction of a POLONIUS figure being stabbed behind the arras (the murdered KING to stand in for POLONIUS) while the PLAYER himself continues his breathless commentary for the benefit of ROS and GUIL.)
PLAYER: Lucianus, nephew to the king … usurped by his uncle and shattered by his mother’s incestuous marriage … loses his reason … throwing the court into turmoil and disarray as he alternates between bitter melancholy and unrestricted lunacy … staggering from the suicidal (a pose) to the homicidal (here he kills “POLONIUS”). … he at last confronts his mother and in a scene of provocative ambiguity-(a somewhat oedipal embrace) begs her to repent and recant– (He springs up, still talking.) The King-(he pushes forward the POISONER/KING) tormented by guilt-haunted by fear-decides to despatch his nephew to England-and entrusts this undertaking to two smiling accomplices-friends-courtiers-to two spies- (He has swung round to bring together the POISONER/KING and the two cloaked TRAGEDIANS; the latter kneel and accept a scroll from the KING.)
-giving them a letter to present to the English court–!
And so they depart-on board ship–
(The two SPIES position themselves on either side of the PLAYER, and the three of them sway gently in unison, the motion of a boat; and then the PLAYER detaches himself.)
-and they arrive-
(One SPY shades his eyes at the horizon.)
-and disembark-and present themselves before the English king-(He wheels round.) The English king– (An exchange of headgear creates the ENGLISH KING from the remaining player-that is, the PLAYER who played the original murdered king.)
But where is the Prince? Where indeed? The plot has thickened-a twist of fate and cunning has put into their hands a letter that seals their deaths!
(The two SPIES present their letter; the ENGLISH KING reads it and orders their deaths. They stand up as the PLAYER whips off their cloaks preparatory to execution.)
Traitors hoist by their own petard?-or victims of the gods?-we shall never know!
(The whole mime has been fluid and continuous but now ROS moves forward and brings it to a pause. What brings ROS forward is the fact that under
their cloaks the two SPIES are wearing coats identical to those worn by ROS and GUIL, whose coats are now covered by their cloaks. ROS approaches “his” SPY doubtfully. He does not quite understand why the coats are familiar. ROS stands close, touches the coat, thoughtfully. )
ROS: Well, if it isn’t–! No, wait a minute, don’t tell me-it’s a long time since-where was it? Ah, this is taking me back to-when was it? I know you, don’t I? I never forget a face-(he looks into the SPY’S face). not that I know yours that is. For a moment I thought- no, I don’t know you, do I? Yes, I’m afraid you’re quite wrong. You must have mistaken me for someone else.
(GUIL meanwhile has approached the other SPY, brow creased in thought.) PLAYER (to GUIL): Are you familiar with this play?
GUIL: No.
PLAYER: A slaughterhouse-eight corpses all told. It brings out the best in us.
GUIL (tense, progressively rattled during the whole mime and commentary): You!-What do you know about death?
PLAYER: It’s what the actors do best. They have to exploit whatever talent is given to them, and their talent is dying. They can die heroically, comically, ironically, slowly, suddenly, disgustingly, charmingly, or from a great height. My own talent is more general. I extract significance from melodrama, a significance which it does not in fact contain; but occasionally, from out of this matter, there escapes a thin beam of light that, seen at the right angle, can crack the shell of mortality.
ROS: Is that all they can do-die?
PLAYER: No, no-they kill beautifully. In fact some of them kill even better than they die. The rest die better than they kill. They’re a team.
ROS: Which ones are which? PLAYER: There’s not much in it.
GUIL (fear, derision): Actors! The mechanics of cheap melodrama! That isn’t death! (More quietly.) You scream and choke and sink to your knees, but it doesn’t bring death home to anyone-it doesn’t catch them unawares and start the whisper in their skulls that says-“One day you are going to die.” (He straightens up.) You die so many times; how can you expect them to believe in your death?
PLAYER: On the contrary, it’s the only kind they do believe. They’re conditioned to it. I had an actor once who was condemned to hang for stealing a sheep-or a lamb, I forget which-so I got permission to have him hanged in the middle of a play-had to change the plot a bit but I thought it would be effective, you know-and you wouldn’t believe it, he just wasn’t convincing! It was impossible to suspend one’s, disbelief-and what with the audience jeering and throwing peanuts, the whole thing was a disaster!-he did nothing but cry all the time-right out of character-just stood there and cried… Never again.
(In good humour he has already turned back to the mime: the two SPIES awaiting execution at the hands of the PLAYER.) Audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in. (To the SPIES.)
Show!
(The SPIES die at some length, rather well.)
(The light has begun to go, and it fades as they die, and as GUIL speaks.)
GUIL: No, no, no… you’ve got it all wrong… you can’t act death. The fact of it is nothing to do with seeing it happen – it’s not gasps and blood and falling about – that isn’t what makes it death. It’s just a man failing
to reappear, that’s all – now you see him, now you don’t that’s the only thing that’s real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back – an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.
(The two SPIES lie still, barely visible. The PLAYER comes forward and throws the SPIES’ cloaks over their bodies. ROS starts to clap, slowly.)
BLACKOUT.
(A second of silence, then much noise. Shouts … “The King rises!” … “Give o’er the play!”… and cries for “Lights, lights, lights!”)
(When the light comes, after a few seconds, it comes as a sunrise.)
(The stage is empty save for two cloaked FIGURES sprawled on the ground in the approximate positions last held by the dead SPIES. As the light grows, they are seen to be ROS and GUIL, and to be resting quite comfortably. ROS raises himself on his elbows and shades his eyes as he stares into the auditorium. Finally:)
ROS: That must be east, then. I think we can assume that. GUIL: I’m assuming nothing.
ROS: No, it’s all right. That’s the sun. East. GUIL (looks up): Where?
ROS: I watched it come up.
GUIL: No… it was light all the time, you see, and you opened your
eyes very, very slowly. If you’d been facing back there you’d be swearing that was east.
ROS (standing up): You’re a mass of prejudice. GUIL: I’ve been taken in before.
ROS (looks out over the audience): Rings a bell. GUIL: They’re waiting to see what we’re going to do. ROS: Good old east.
GUIL: As soon as we make a move they’ll come pouring in from every side, shouting obscure instructions, confusing us with ridiculous remarks, messing us about from here to breakfast and getting our names wrong.
(ROS starts to protest but he has hardly opened his mouth before:) CLAUDIUS (off-stage – with urgency): Ho, Guildenstern!
(GUIL is still prone. Small pause.) ROS AND GUIL: You’re wanted…
(GUIL furiously leaps to his feet as CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE enter. They are in some desperation.)
CLAUDIUS: Friends both, go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, and from his mother’s closet hath he dragged him. Go seek him out; speak fair and bring the body into the chapel. I pray you haste in this. (As he and GERTRUDE are hurrying out.) Come Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends and let them know both what we mean to do…
(They’ve gone.)
(ROS and GUIL remain quite still.) GUIL: Well….
ROS: Quite…. GUIL: Well, well.
ROS: Quite; quite. (Nods with spurious confidence.) Seek him out. (Pause.) Etcetera.
GUIL: Quite.
ROS: Well. (Small pause.) Well, that’s a step in the right direction. GUIL: You didn’t like him?
ROS: Who?
GUIL: Good God, I hope more tears are shed for us! …
ROS: Well, it’s progress, isn’t it? Something positive. Seek him out. (Looks round without moving his feet) Where does one begin… ? (Takes one step towards the wings and halts.)
GUIL: Well, that’s a step in the right direction. ROS: You think so? He could be anywhere. GUIL: All right-you go that way, I’ll go this way. ROS: Right.
(They walk towards opposite wings. ROS halts.) No.
(GUIL halts.)
You go this way-I’ll go that way.
GUIL: All right.
(They march towards each other, cross. ROS halts.) ROS: Wait a minute.
(GUIL halts.)
I think we should stick together. He might be violent. GUIL: Good point. I’ll come with you.
(GUIL marches across to ROS. They turn to leave. ROS halts.) ROS: No, I’ll come with you…
GUIL: Right.
(They turn, march across to the opposite wing. ROS halts. GUIL halts.) ROS: I’ll come with you, my way.
GUIL: All right.
(They turn again and march across. ROS halts. GUIL halts.)
ROS: I’ve just thought. If we both go, he could come here. That would be stupid, wouldn’t it? GUIL: All right-I’ll stay, you go.
ROS: Right.
(GUIL marches to midstage.) I say.
(GUIL wheels and carries on marching back towards ROS who starts marching downstage. They cross. ROS halts.)
I’ve just thought. (GUIL halts.)
We ought to stick together; he might be violent. GUIL: Good point.
(GUIL marches down to join ROS. They stand still for a moment in their original positions.) Well, at last we’re getting somewhere.
(Pause.)
GUIL: Of course, he might not come. ROS (airily): Oh, he’ll come.
GUIL: We’d have some explaining to do.
ROS: He’ll come. (Airily wanders upstage.) Don’t worry-take my word for it-(looks out-is appalled.) He’s coming! GUIL: What’s he doing?
ROS: Walking. GUIL: Alone? ROS: No.
GUIL: Who’s with him? ROS: The old man.
GUIL: Walking? ROS: No.
GUIL: Not walking? ROS: No.
GUIL: Ah. That’s an opening if ever there was one. (And is suddenly galvanized into action.) Let him walk into the trap!
ROS: What trap?
GUIL: You stand there! Don’t let him pass!
(He positions ROS with his back to one wing, facing HAMLET’s entrance.)
(GUIL positions himself next to ROS, a few feet away, so that they are covering one side of the stage, facing the opposite side. GUIL unfastens his belt. ROS does the same. They join the two belts, and hold them taut between them. ROS’s trousers slide slowly down.)
(HAMLET enters opposite, slowly, dragging POLONIUS’s BODY. He enters upstage, makes a small arc and leaves by the same side, a few feet downstage.)
(ROS and GUIL, holding the belts taut, stare at him in some bewilderment.) (HAMLET leaves, dragging the BODY. They relax the strain on the belts.)
ROS: That was close.
GUIL: There’s a limit to what two people can do. (They undo the belts: ROS pulls up his trousers.)
ROS (worriedly-he walks a few paces towards HAMLET’s exit): He was dead. GUIL: Of course he’s dead!
ROS (turns to GUIL): Properly.
GUIL (angrily): Death’s death, isn’t it? (ROS falls silent. Pause.)
Perhaps he’ll come back this way. (ROS starts to take off his belt.)
No, no, no!-if we can’t learn by experience, what else have we got? (ROS desists.)
(Pause.)
ROS: Give him a shout.
GUIL: I thought we’d been into all that. ROS (shouts): Hamlet!
GUIL: Don’t be absurd.
ROS (shouts): Lord Hamlet!
(HAMLET enters. ROS is a little dismayed.)
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body? HAMLET: Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.
ROS: Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence and bear it to the chapel. HAMLET: Do not believe it.
ROS: Believe what?
HAMLET: That I can keep your counsel and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son of a king?
ROS: Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET: Ay, sir, that soaks up the king’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed, to be last
swallowed. When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry again.
ROS: I understand you not, my lord.
HAMLET: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
ROS: My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King.
HAMLET: The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing- GUIL: A thing, my lord -?
HAMLET: Of nothing. Bring me to him.
(HAMLET moves resolutely towards one wing. They move with him, shepherding. Just before they reach the exit, HAMLET, apparently seeing CLAUDIUS approaching from off stage, bends low in a sweeping bow. ROS and GUIL, cued by HAMLET, also bow deeply-a sweeping ceremonial bow with their cloaks swept round them.
HAMLET, however, continues the movement into an about-turn and walks off in the opposite direction. ROS and GUIL, with their heads low, do not notice. No one comes on. ROS and GUIL squint upwards and
find that they are bowing to nothing.
CLAUDIUS enters behind them. At his first words they leap up and do a double-take.) CLAUDIUS: How now? What hath befallen?
ROS: Where the body is bestowed, my lord, we cannot get from him. CLAUDIUS: But where is he?
ROS (fractional hesitation): Without, my lord; guarded to know your pleasure. CLAUDIUS (moves): Bring him before us.
(This hits ROS between the eyes but only his eyes show it. Again his hesitation is fractional. And then with great deliberation he turns to GUIL.)
ROS: Ho! Bring in the lord.
(Again there is a fractional moment in which ROS is smug, CUIL is trapped and betrayed. GUIL opens his mouth and closes it.)
(The situation is saved;)
(HAMLET, escorted, is marched in just as CLAUDIUS leaves. HAMLET and his ESCORT cross the stage and go out, following CLAUDIUS.)
(Lighting changes to Exterior.) ROS (moves to go): All right, then?
GUIL (does not move: thoughtfully): And yet it doesn’t seem enough; to have breathed such significance. Can that be ail? And why us?-anybody would have done. And we have contributed nothing.
ROS: It was a trying episode while it lasted, but they’ve done with us now. GUIL: Done what?
ROS: I don’t pretend to have understood. Frankly, I’m not very interested. If they won’t tell us, that’s their affair. (He wanders upstage towards the exit.) For my part, I’m only glad that that’s the last we’ve seen of him- (And he glances offstage and turns front, his face betraying the fact that HAMLET is there.)
GUIL: I knew it wasn’t the end…. ROS (high): What else?!
GUIL: We’re taking him to England. What’s he doing? (ROS goes upstage and returns.)
ROS: Talking. GUIL: To himself?
(ROS makes to go, GUIL cuts him off.) Is he alone?
ROS: No, he’s with a soldier,
GUIL: Then he’s not talking to himself, is he? ROS: Not by himself… Should we go?
GUIL: Where?
ROS: Anywhere.
GUIL: Why?
(ROS puts up his head listening.)
ROS: There it is again. (In anguish.) All I ask is a change of ground! GUIL (coda): Give us this day our daily round…
(HAMLET enters behind them, talking with a soldier in arms. ROS and GUIL don’t look round.)
ROS: They’ll have us hanging about till we’re dead. At least. And the weather will change. (Looks up.) The spring can’t last for ever.
HAMLET: Good sir, whose powers are these? SOLDIER: They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET: How purposed, sir, I pray you? SOLDIER: Against some part of Poland. HAMLET: Who commands them, sir?
SOLDIER: The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. ROS: We’ll be cold. The summer won’t last.
GUIL: It’s autumnal.
ROS (examining the ground): No leaves.
GUIL: Autumnal-nothing to do with leaves. It is to do with a certain brownness at the edges of the day… Brown is creeping up on us, take my word for it… Russets and tangerine shades of old gold flushing the very
outside edge of the senses… deep shining ochres, burnt umber and parchments of baked earth-reflecting on itself and through itself, filtering the light. At such times, perhaps, coincidentally, the leaves might fall, somewhere, by repute. Yesterday was blue, like smoke.
ROS (head up, listening): I got it again then.
(They listen-faintest sound of TRAGEDIANS’ band.)
HAMLET: I humbly thank you, sir. SOLDIER: God by you, sir. (Exit.)
(ROS gets up quickly and goes to HAMLET.) ROS: Will it please you go, my lord?
HAMLET: I’ll be with you straight. Go you a little before.
(HAMLET turns to face upstage. ROS returns down. GUIL faces front, doesn’t turn.) GUIL: Is he there?
ROS: Yes.
GUIL: What’s he doing?
(ROS looks over his shoulder.) ROS: Talking.
GUIL: To himself? ROS: Yes.
(Pause. ROS makes to leave.)
ROS: He said we can go. Cross my heart.
GUIL: I like to know where I am. Even if I don’t know where I am, I like to know that. If we go there’s no knowing.
ROS: No knowing what? GUIL: If we’ll ever come back.
ROS: We don’t want to come back.
GUIL: That may very well be true, but do we want to go? ROS: We’ll be free.
GUIL: I don’t know. It’s the same sky. ROS: We’ve come this far.
(He moves towards exit. GUIL follows him.) And besides, anything could happen yet.
(They go.)
BLACKOUT
