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The Shakespeare Notebooks Page 5

by Justin Richards


  A STRANGE WOODLAND

  Sandy ground. Bubbling streams. Low mist. The trunks of immense bamboo trees stretch up to a night sky garlanded with stars.

  Enter, from one side, the BUTTERFLY KING, riding upon a GIANT ANT accompanied by GIANT GRUBS and WOODLICE-MEN. And on the other side, the BUTTERFLY QUEEN on another GIANT ANT accompanied by BUTTERFLY CHILDREN.

  BUTTERFLY KING

  Ill met by moons’ light, proud Tetynia.

  Wherefore comest thou to the flower forest?

  BUTTERFLY QUEEN

  How now, Hrobron! I come from my temple

  Of light upon the moon Taron to warn

  Thou of a fresh contagion on our world.

  A ship has fallen from the stars and is

  Not far remov’d.

  BUTTERFLY KING

  Within this wood, you say?

  BUTTERFLY QUEEN

  If thou wouldst please accompany my flight

  I’ll mark you where they lie. They are most strange;

  Nasty, brutish and short.

  BUTTERFLY KING

  I’ll go with thee.

  BUTTERFLY QUEEN

  Then follow close behind and thou wilt see

  Their form and overhear their conference.

  The BUTTERFLY KING and BUTTERFLY QUEEN join hands and fly off together.

  ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD

  A group of WAR-GOBLINS enter, led by FIELD MAJOR KRYNTZ.

  KRYNTZ

  This will make a marvellous convenient location for our preparations. Is all our division met?

  STOMBOT

  I recommend you call them gen’rally according to the roll-call.

  KRYNTZ

  Here is the list of every trooper that’s been deemed fit to participate in our mission; a dramatic reconstruction to be performed before the Group Marshal and the latest batch of clone recruits at the victory ceremony in celebration of our glorious conquest of the Isop galaxy and the merciless subjugation of its many puny species.

  STOMBOT

  Field Major Kryntz –

  KRYNTZ

  What sayest thou, Fabricator Stombot?

  STOMBOT

  Why have we been charged to enact a reconstruction?

  Why not just show the high-definition holovisual recording?

  KRYNTZ

  A recording does not possess the same dramatic impact as a live reconstruction. We are to interpret the incidents according to the traditions of our glorious Sontaran culture.

  STOMBOT

  What incidents are we to reconstruct for the imperial leader?

  KRYNTZ

  Our reconstruction is, “The Most Glorious Defeat and Most Deserv’d Death of the Trifling Rutan Foe at Fang Rock.”.

  STOMBOT

  Was that victory not achieved by an inferior race without our involvement?

  KRYNTZ

  Exactly, Stombot. The reconstruction is to demonstrate that the Rutan foe are so feeble they can be defeated by a puny subspecies without our active participation.

  STOMBOT

  But if that is the case, why have we not defeated them?

  KRYNTZ

  That is seditious talk, Stombot! As you know our final victory over the Rutan is imminent and has been imminent for the last one hundred thousand years. Now, answer as you are called. Fabricator Stombot?

  STOMBOT

  Sontar-ha! Name what part I am for, and proceed.

  KRYNTZ

  You are set down for the Doctor.

  STOMBOT

  What is ‘the Doctor’? A heroic warrior or a cruel tyrant?

  KRYNTZ

  A most heroic warrior that shows no mercy to the Rutan!

  STOMBOT

  A most fitting role. I assure you I will be absolutely pitiful.

  KRYNTZ

  You must not be pitiful, you must be pitiless, or we will all be reassigned to latrine maintenance duties. Ventilation Engineer Flaxis?

  FLAXIS

  Sontar-ha!

  KRYNTZ

  Flaxis, you must take the part of Leela.

  FLAXIS

  What is Leela? Another heroic warrior?

  KRYNTZ

  He is the Doctor’s boy assistant who taunts the Rutan during its lingering death throes. Uniform Fitter Starvel?

  STARVEL

  Sontar-ha!

  KRYNTZ

  You shall play Vince ‘the light-house keeper’. Utensil Technician Stoun?

  STOUN

  Sontar-ha!

  KRYNTZ

  You, ‘Lord Palmerdale’. Myself, ‘Colonel Skinsale’. Snarg the Construction Operative, you the Rutan’s part.

  SNARG

  Have you the Rutan’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

  KRYNTZ

  You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but dying.

  STOMBOT

  Let me play the Rutan too: I will play it so well, I will convince everyone watching I am the genuine article!

  KRYNTZ

  And set off an intruder alert and have us all immediately vapourised! No. You must play no part but the Doctor.

  STOMBOT

  Then you must write a prologue; let the prologue say, for the more better assurance, that Snarg is not a Rutan, but Snarg the Construction Operative; this will avoid any confusion.

  KRYNTZ

  Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the lighthouse into the imperial chamber; for, you know, the Rutan scout was destroyed by the explosion of a lighthouse. So one of us must come in with a mound of rocks and a lantern, and say he comes to represent the person of ‘Lighthouse’. Then there is another thing: we must have a Rutan scoutship in the imperial chamber; for the story includes a Rutan scoutship crashing.

  STOUN

  You can never have a Rutan scoutship crashing in the imperial chamber! What say you, Stombot?

  STOMBOT

  Some man or other must present ‘Scoutship’: and let him have some glass about him to signify crystalline infrastructure!

  KRYNTZ hands out scripts.

  KRYNTZ

  If that may be, then all is well. Let us begin: Here are your scripts. When you have spoken your speech, Stombot, enter that cave: and so every Sontaran according to his cue.

  Enter the WHITE-HAIRED OLD DOCTOR, crouched behind a rock.

  OLD DOCTOR

  O my goodness!

  What thick-set ruffians have we swagg’ring here,

  And disrupting the harmony o’Vortis?

  It will not do, it will not do at all! [chuckles]

  He scurries into a nearby cave.

  KRYNTZ

  Speak, Stombot. Flaxis, stand forth.

  STOMBOT

  [reads] “Where is this place we have arriv’d, it is not Britain.”

  KRYNTZ

  Say “Bright-ton”, not “Brit-ain”!

  FLAXIS

  [reads] “Doctor, has your inferior travel capsule failed again?”

  STOMBOT

  “Yes, the localised atmospheric conditions caused a navigation error in my inferior technology.”

  FLAXIS

  “What is that over yonder?” [points]

  STOMBOT

  “’Tis a light-house. Come, young boy. We must investigate and destroy any Rutans that have gained access.”

  KRYNTZ

  Now you must enter into the cave with Fraxis as we cut to inside the lighthouse.

  STOMBOT and FLAXIS enter the cave.

  KRYNTZ

  Uniform Fitter Starvel, that is your cue. Stand forth!

  STARVEL

  [reads] “I am Vince, commander of the light-house. What is that I see – a falling star. It goes under the sea and doth glow most mysteriously. I shall disregard it as a meteor as I am a foolish primitive incapable of recognising a Rutan scoutship. And what is this? A mist –”

  FLAXIS runs from the cave.

  FLAXIS

  [breathless] Field Major Kryntz, we must evacuate!

>   At once!

  KRYNTZ

  What is it?

  FLAXIS

  Fabricator Stombot isn’t Fabricator Stombot!

  STOMBOT emerges from the cave. But transformed into a GREEN-EYED MONSTER with numerous tentacles!

  KRYNTZ

  O monstrous! O strange!

  GREEN-EYED MONSTER

  What’s the matter? I am Fabricator Stombot of the fourth Sontaran Army Space Corps. Why do you stare at me thus?

  STOUN

  Thou art transform’d! Thou art a Rutan!

  GREEN-EYED MONSTER

  What? [sighs] Oh no. Our metamorphic field generator must have failed.

  KRYNTZ

  It must have eliminated Fabricator Stombot and taken his place. But why? To gain access to the victory ceremony and assassinate the Group Marshall!

  GREEN-EYED MONSTER

  You have reason’d correctly. And we would have succeeded had our disguise not destabilised. Now you must all be destroy’d! Miserable Sontaran rabble!

  It starts crackling with lightning.

  The WAR-GOBLINS back away.

  KRYNTZ

  All troopers! We must leave this planet at once! Our mission has been compromised! Abandon Vortis! Repeat! Abandon Vortis!

  Exeunt WAR-GOBLINS pursued by GREEN-EYED MONSTER.

  The WHITE-HAIRED OLD DOCTOR emerges from the cave.

  OLD DOCTOR

  [giggling] A simple matter to deactivate

  The Rutan’s metamorphic field with my

  Reacting Collator! I doubt that we

  Will see them hence, not for awhile at least!

  Good riddance to bad rubbish, I should say!

  Now where did I leave Steven and Dodo?

  Exit the WHITE-HAIRED OLD DOCTOR.

  * * *

  The time is out of joint, oh cursed spite, why can’t the TARDIS ever get it right?

  * * *

  A PROLOGUE

  This fragment appears to be a variant version of the opening of Henry V, Shakespeare’s play about the events before and after the battle of Agincourt in 1415. The Chorus is the first character to appear, and explains to the audience that the lifelike depiction of such a conflict is beyond the means of a little group of actors in a wooden theatre. However, the battle described here is fought by agents other than the French and the English – combatants such as the Daleks, the Nightmare Child and the Time Lords are mentioned. This war would seem to have been conducted on a scale even further beyond the possibility of representation with a small cast and modest set of props.

  CHORUS

  O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

  The brightest heaven of invention,

  A planet for a stage, monsters to act

  And Time Lords to behold the swelling scene!

  Then should the Warlike Doctor, like himself,

  Assume the port of Mars; and on the field

  The Meanwhiles and the troops of Neverwere,

  The Nightmare Child, the Horde of Travesties,

  The Skaro Degradations and their kin;

  The Time War’s troops. But pardon, gentles all,

  The flat unraised spirits that have dared

  On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

  So great an object: can this cockpit hold

  The plains of Gallifrey? or may we cram

  Within this wooden O the bowships

  That prevented not the fall of Arcady?

  O, pardon! since a single Dalek may

  Attest in little place a million;

  And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,

  On your imaginary forces work.

  Suppose within the girdle of these walls

  Are now confined two powers imperial

  One great with saucers and trans-solar discs

  The other fast with transduction’s barrier.

  Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;

  Conceive this paltry glass a Whitepoint Star

  Fitted to scourge Creation with its light.

  Think when we talk of Daleks, that you see them

  Soar in squadrons through Kasterborous

  For ’tis your thoughts that now must power our ships,

  Lay waste our worlds; effect our jumps in time;

  Spilling a tale as long as Rassilon’s

  Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,

  Admit me Chorus to this history;

  Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,

  Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

  THE TRUE AND MOST EXCELLENT COMEDIE OF ROMEO AND JULIET

  It is generally agreed that Shakespeare’s play about the doomed love of Romeo and Juliet took as its main inspiration the poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brook. The play, as reproduced in Quarto and Folio, closely follows the narrative of the poem, using the same character names and ending (as is well known) with the death of Romeo (when he discovers Juliet in a state of apparent death after taking a sleeping draught) and the death of Juliet (after she awakes and discovers Romeo has died).

  However, it appears that under pressure from James Burbage to ‘make dark tragedie light’ Shakespeare prepared a second version of the play (‘the story as it did truly unfold, by misfortune unmarred’) with a happy ending, turning the play (which is highly comic for its first three acts) into an out-and-out comedy . . .

  This extract forms one of the longest pieces in the Shakespeare Notebooks.

  ACT IV, SCENE III – JULIET’S BEDROOM

  JULIET

  O look methinks I see my cousin’s ghost

  Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body

  Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!

  Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink, I drink to thee.

  She falls upon her bed within the curtains.

  Trumpet, wheezing, groaning.

  Enter Doctor, Rory and Amy.

  DOCTOR

  No, wait! You must not sip the sleeping draught!

  RORY

  Too late, she’s out as cold as winter night

  Her eyes respondeth not unto the light

  Her heart, it beats so slow and faint to touch,

  Her breath’s so slight, no feather would it stir

  And in this state would be mistook for death

  AMY

  Can not she be up-roused from her sleep?

  A slap upon her cheek or touch of ice?

  Or clap my hands over her face?

  DOCTOR

  No good

  She has partook potion enough to stun

  An elephant. You could a petard bang

  And she would not stir from her slumber deep.

  RORY

  Then what are we to do? We dare not stay.

  To be discovered with Julie’s corpse.

  AMY

  No, it would not look good if we were found.

  They’d have us put to death for murder sure

  DOCTOR

  You’re right, and so we three must hence away.

  Exeunt Doctor, Rory and Amy. Trumpet, wheezing, groaning.

  ACT V, SCENE I – A STREET IN MANTUA

  The Apothecary gives Romeo a vial of poison.

  APOTHECARY

  Put this in any liquid thing you will

  And drink it off; and if you had the strength

  Of twenty men it would dispatch you straight.

  Romeo gives him gold.

  ROMEO

  There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls.

  Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh.

  Exit Romeo.

  APOTHECARY

  Die well! [aside] Think thou that mine’s a murderer’s trade?

  But hark you this; those that seek out my wares

  Are satisfied with the exchange. At least,

  I’ve not so far receiv’d any complaints!

  Trumpet, wheezing, groaning.

  Enter Doctor, Rory and Amy.

  DOCTOR

 
; Stop! O, do not buy the cursed vial!

  RORY

  Too late, Doctor, we must have just missed him.

  AMY

  Romeo! Romeo! Where then is he, Romeo?

  APOTHECARY

  Methinks I did hear word of his intent

  But find myself distract with my hunger

  The Doctor gives him gold.

  DOCTOR

  Here take this gold and buy thyself some lunch.

  APOTHECARY

  I thank you sir. I heard him say that hence

  He would to the Capulet tomb go straight

  To lie with his dead love call’d Juliet.

  RORY

  You mean he’s gone back to Verona now?

  AMY

  His love you see is merely feigning death!

  APOTHECARY

  Oh no!

  DOCTOR

  Come friends there is no time to lose!

  We must with haste to TARDIS quickly fly!

  Exeunt Doctor, Rory and Amy. Trumpet, wheezing, groaning.

  APOTHECARY

  ’Tis not for me to care what those who buy

  My goods may do in folly or remorse.

  It hath for me been a rich day of trade

  I shall now dine and drink my health in wine!

  Exit Apothecary.

  ACT V, SCENE III – CAPULET TOMB IN THE VERONA CHURCHYARD

  Romeo has discovered Juliet lying on an altar in the tomb.

  ROMEO

  Arms, take your last embrace, and lips, O you

  The doors of breath seal with a righteous kiss

  A dateless bargain to engrossing death.

  Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide.

  Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

  The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!

  Here’s to my love.

  He reaches for the vial of poison.

  Doctor, Amy, Rory appear from behind the altar.

  DOCTOR

  Romeo, stop! Don’t drink the poison’d brew!

  For if thou dost thou shalt regret the deed

  As long as thou shalt live; which won’t be long

  But that is not the point. The point is this;

  Thy Juliet is not dead yet; she lives!

 

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