Then they begin to whack each other like at the Catania fair, until a guy comes to try to calm them down, but he doesn’t succeed.
But by now all attention is focused on the entrance of the protagonists. The audience wants to see Romeo and Juliet and who gives a fuck about the others.
(Although Montague, Romeo’s father, isn’t bad. He’s played by Carmelo Schiacchitano, who trained as a bass-baritone before moving into the theater, and who holds the stage like an opera singer.)
But under Cagnotto’s direction, the performance doesn’t dwell on the other actors, not one bit. He has them appear onstage in all their “stage-worn authenticity,” as he puts it, which is another way of saying, get them out of the way and concentrate on Caporeale, Cosentino, and Lambertini, actors who can grab headlines in La Voce della Sicilia, prime medium for funding and sponsorship.
MONTAGUE Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow
We could as willingly give cure as know
The audience murmurs.
“Whence? Shit, what language—”
“Shhh … It’s poetry.”
“Whence, huh? Meaning when?”
“Ignoramus.”
“Hey, he couldn’t say when?”
“Whence doesn’t mean when, it means from where.”
“Where?”
“Will you shut up or shall I call the police?”
“Whence the police?”
“Shhh … Romeo’s coming on.”
“Shit, this part I want to see.”
Enter Romeo. (Although it’s not in the script and although Cagnotto hadn’t indicated he should do so, Romeo enters with his back to the audience, scuttling backward and sideways.)
BENVOLIO Good morrow, cousin.
ROMEO (A hand on his brow as if to make out some vague point on the horizon, still keeping his back to the audience) Is the day so young?
BENVOLIO But new struck nine.
ROMEO (Shrugging his shoulders) Ay me! sad hours seem long. (Moving his head from left to right) Was that my father that went hence so fast?
BENVOLIO It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?
ROMEO Not having that which having makes them short.
BENVOLIO In love?
ROMEO Out—
BENVOLIO Of love?
ROMEO Out of her favor where I am in love.
BENVOLIO Alas that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
ROMEO (Continuing to show the audience his back, he reaches out an arm toward BENVOLIO and launches into his first long speech.)
Alas that love, whose view is muffled, still …
ROMEO (He lies down on his side as if on a grassy meadow and begins his second speech.) Why, such is love’s transgression.
ROMEO (On his stomach now and resting his chin on his hands)
Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow.
BENVOLIO Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
ROMEO (Sitting up with some difficulty and squatting with his knees against his chest)
She hath; and in that sparing makes huge waste.
ROMEO (Rising, back to the audience)
Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.
Exeunt.
Cagnotto, backstage, looks at Romeo, bewildered.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, I’m … I don’t know … this thing of acting with your back to the audience …”
“I was turned toward the new day, and then toward my distant love. Then I lay down because it seemed like the kind of thing a man in love would do, to discourse on love with his chin resting on his hands.”
“Yes, hmm … a sort of bucolic scene, yes …”
“That’s right! That’s exactly what I had in mind.”
“How’s the audience, Caporeale?”
“Warm, warm, it’s warm.”
“Oh, good, good.”
Lambertini’s eyes are popping out of their sockets as she looks at Caporeale’s codpiece.
“They don’t make them like that anymore, all we can do is pat our lips,” says Cosentino to Lambertini, pretending to pat his lips with a napkin like a man for whom dinner is already over.
“Make what?”
“Actors like Caporeale. They broke the mold!”
“Hurry up, Caporeale, onstage,” says Cagnotto, clapping his hands.
CAPOREALE grabs a stunned BENVOLIO and comes onstage holding him tightly by the arm, walking back and forth, back and forth, BENVOLIO on the audience side. They’re talking about the Capulet feast. When it’s time to reverse direction, CAPOREALE is speedier than an Olympic swimmer.
ROMEO I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.
Exeunt.
Cagnotto looks at Caporeale. “Why so tight?”
“Tight?”
“You and Benvolio.”
“Who was tight?”
“Nobody was tight. You were holding on to Benvolio tightly.”
“Oh, right. That worked okay, no?”
“No idea. From here I can’t tell.”
“Warm, warm, the audience is warm.”
Cagnotto looks at Caporeale.
Caporeale nods. “Warm.”
Lambertini walks in front of Cagnotto and Caporeale, picking up speed for her first appearance onstage.
Cagnotto and Caporeale turn to look at a fast-moving Juliet.
JULIET comes onstage running.
JULIET How now? Who calls?
The audience breaks out in boisterous applause.
Lady Capulet tells her daughter Juliet that she would like her to marry Paris.
The feast in the Capulet household begins.
On the street, Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, and five or six maskers approach the house with torchbearers, servants, etc.
Mercutio, Benvolio, the five or six maskers, torchbearers, servants, etc., come onstage.
Romeo remains behind the scenes.
“Hey, Caporeale, you’re on,” says Cagnotto.
“Okay, just a minute, for the suspense.”
“Suspense?”
Caporeale nods competently. Then, still offstage, he recites his line.
The voice of ROMEO is heard offstage.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?
Cagnotto says to Caporeale, “Caporeale, what are you up to?”
“Trust me, trust me.”
BENVOLIO (Looking around worriedly; where is ROMEO?)
The date is out of such prolixity
We’ll have no Cupid hoodwinked with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper,
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance
But, let them measure us by what they will,
We’ll measure them a measure and be gone.
ROMEO (He hurls himself onstage grabbing a torch from the hands of a torchbearer, and, holding it with both hands in front of his codpiece, exclaims)
Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling.
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
MERCUTIO Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. (MERCUTIO continues, although not from the script.)
Lay down thy torch, my noble Romeo.
ROMEO Never hath the thought crossed my mind. And you,
My trusted Mercutio, worry more about your own dances,
Make sure they are graceful so as not to cut
A poor figure in a house that hides a treasure. (This too is not in
the script, but now he picks up from Shakespeare.)
You have dancing shoes
With nimble souls. I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move. (He adds, ad lib)
And so I keep the torch.
M
ERCUTIO … Put down the torch and (He segues into the script.)
Borrow Cupid’s wings
And soar with them above a common bound.
ROMEO I am too sore empierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers; and so bound
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.
MERCUTIO And to sink in it, should you burden love—Too great oppression for a tender thing.
ROMEO Tender is what you are, my dear Mercutio
All in our fair Verona, know your tenderness, but love (Back to
the script again) is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
MERCUTIO If love be rough with you, be rough with love.
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. (He goes on,
improvising.)
Throw down the torch, and let us see
Your tender thing.
BENVOLIO Come, knock and enter …
ROMEO I’ll be a candleholder and look on.
ROMEO strides across the stage holding the torch with both hands in front of his codpiece.
The audience is watching with great interest. They know that Romeo will see his Juliet for the first time at the Capulet feast.
ROMEO What lady’s that, which doth enrich the hand Of yonder knight?
SERVINGMAN I know not, sir.
ROMEO Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
… The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand
And touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
JULIET finishes her dance. She goes to stand near one of the tubes of the scaffolding. ROMEO strides toward her, torch in hand, and approaches slyly.
ROMEO (To JULIET) If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this.
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. (Off script he adds)
I know not who thou art;
Old relic in a holy shrine thou seemst.
Hath they not told thee so?
JULIET (Rubbing herself romantically against the scaffolding and
improvising) Thou too, good pilgrim, a relic to me seemst,
Your sister, too, though blessed with family grace. (She segues
into Shakespeare.)
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch.
ROMEO Have not saints lips?
JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO Ah, then my fairest relic of a saint (He segues into
Shakespeare.)
Let lips do what hands do!
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET Saints do not move …
ROMEO And therefore, my holy relic (He segues into Shakespeare.)
Move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purged.
ROMEO kisses JULIET.
The audience applauds.
Act One over, Cagnotto says to Caporeale, “Nice, the ballroom scene with the torch in your hand.”
Caporeale makes a gratified, modest face.
“Where you want this?” asks an Interflora deliveryman with a wisteria vine in hand.
“Oh, um, like this.” Cagnotto shows him with a flip of the hand where to put the wisteria on the tubular scaffolding.
The deliveryman puts the wisteria down on the ground, gets up, looks at Cagnotto, looks at the scaffolding, and, miming the graceful gesture that Cagnotto has just made, says, “Like this?”
“Yes, that’s right, like that.”
“Can I take it?” asks Caporeale pointing to the wisteria.
“Be my guest,” says the Interflora man, “we’ve got a truckful.”
“Caporeale, what are you doing with that?”
“There’s the garden scene and the balcony scene, no?”
The Interflora deliverymen come onstage to decorate the scaffolding with wisteria.
The audience applauds.
THE SECOND ACT BEGINS
From behind the wings, a leg appears, which we understand from the voice belongs to ROMEO.
Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out.
The leg is withdrawn.
Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.
They are speaking of ROMEO.
From their talk we understand that ROMEO has scaled a wall.
The wall is that of Capulet’s house.
ROMEO is determined to meet his JULIET.
The Capulet garden.
Enter ROMEO with a sprig of wisteria in front of his codpiece.
ROMEO He jests at scars that never felt a wound. (He improvises.) Constrained behind a bush to spy my love!
JULIET comes out on the balcony, stroking the wisteria.
ROMEO But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
… She speaks. Yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses. I will answer it.
JULIET Ay me!
ROMEO She speaks. (He improvises.)
Behind this bush
I’ll hear my love.
JULIET O Romeo, Romeo!—wherefore art thou, Romeo?
Now, ROMEO may be in love, but CAPOREALE is a cynical cocksucker, so he begins to play a double who makes faces at the audience, an old trick of the trade in dialect theater. What follows are his facial expressions, with translations.
DOUBLE (Brings his chin forward with a jerk) And who should I be?
JULIET Deny thy father and refuse thy name
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
DOUBLE (Closes his eyelids and simultaneously raises his eyebrows as he moves his head up and to the left) Let’s not get carried away.
JULIET ’Tis but thy name which is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
DOUBLE (Knits his brows, looks up and to the right) I would not be me if I were not a Montague? I would be a Montague if I were not an enemy? I would be … what the fuck’s she talking about?
JULIET What’s Montague?
DOUBLE (Arches his eyebrows and at the same time pulls the corners of his mouth down) What the fuck do you think it is? It’s my name.
JULIET It is not hand nor foot
Nor arm nor face nor any other part
Belonging to a man.
DOUBLE (CAPOREALE looks at his body worriedly. His arms, his feet, his back.)
JULIET O be some other name!
What’s in a name?
DOUBLE (He clenches his teeth and widens his mouth, stretching his neck muscles.) Shit, JULIET is really pathetic tonight.
JULIET That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.
DOUBLE (He writes an M with his head, as if he were following a complicated argument or the flight of a butterfly.)
JULIET Romeo, doff thy name;
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
Briskly, CAPOREALE lets go of the bush and turns toward the balcony.
ROMEO Call me but love (and, he ad libs), get it over with!
JULIET What man art thou?
ROMEO (Ad libs) No idea, you’ve messed up my mind.
Signora Spampinato, wife of Commissioner Spampinato, rushes away from her seat because she has pissed in her pants.
The courtship over, a light goes on inside the structure of tubular scaffolding. It is FRIAR LAWRENCE’s cell. FRIAR LAWRENCE is already sitting down. ROMEO, his back as always to the audience, enters the cell and sits down.
FRIAR LAWRENCE has taken ROMEO’s case to heart. He hopes
that a wedding will end the historic rivalry between the two houses.
The lights in his cell go out and the piazza lights up. BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO come on, wondering what has become of Romeo. CAPOREALE comes out of FRIAR LAWRENCE’s dark cell, walking backward.
BENVOLIO Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!
MERCUTIO Without his roe (COSENTINO shapes his hands in an oval, like a shad roe.), like a dried herring. (COSENTINO raises the little finger of his right hand.) O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified. Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura, to his lady, was a kitchen wench—marry, she had a better love to berhyme her—Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, Thisbe a gray eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signor Romeo, bonjour. There’s a French salutation (COSENTINO touches an ear.) to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.
ROMEO Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?
MERCUTIO The slip, sir, the slip. (He ad libs.) Know what I mean?
ROMEO Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.
MERCUTIO That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
ROMEO (His back to the audience, he bows, making a respectful gesture with his hand.) Meaning, to curtsy.
MERCUTIO Thou hast most kindly hit it.
Sicilian Tragedee Page 18
