Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (9 page)

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 Mm
.

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 has been holding
ALFRED
,
in his robe and blond 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 has 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.
(Ashe leaves
,
OPHELIA
tottering upstage, he speaks into her ear a quick clipped sentence.)
To a nunnery, go.

He goes out
.
OPHELIA
falls on to 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, well miss each other in the dark. I'm referring to oral tradition. So to speak.

GUIL
releases him
.