The Shakespeare Notebooks
Page 5
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!