Том Стоппард. Розенкранц и Гиндельстейн мертвы (engl) Tom Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead The Play Act One Two ELIZABETHANS passing time in a place without any visible character. They are well-dressed - hats, cloaks, sticks and all. Each of them has a large leather money bag. Guildenstern's bag is nearly empty. Rosencrantz's bag is nearly full. The reason being: they are betting on the toss of a coin, in the following manner: Guildenstern (hereafter 'GUIL') takes a coin out of his bag, spins it, letting it fall. Rosencrantz (hereafter 'ROS') studies it, announces it as "heads" (as it happens) and puts it into his own bag. Then they repeat the process. They have apparently been doing it for some time. The run of "heads" is impossible, yet ROS betrays no surprise at all - he feels none. However he is nice enough to feel a little embarrassed at taking so much money off his friend. Let that be his character note. GUIL is well alive to the oddity of it. He is not worried about the money, but he is worried by the implications ; aware but not going to panic about it - his character note. GUIL sits. ROS stands (he does the moving, retrieving coins). GUIL spins. ROS studies coin. ROS: Heads. (He picks it up and puts it in his money bag. The process is repeated.) Heads. (Again.) ROS: Heads. (Again.) Heads. (Again.) Heads. GUIL (flipping a coin): There is an art to the building up of suspense. ROS: Heads. GUIL (flipping another): Though it can be done by luck alone. ROS: Heads. GUIL: If that's the word I'm after. ROS (raises his head at GUIL): Seventy-six love. (GUIL gets up but has nowhere to go. He spins another coin over his shoulder without looking at it, his attention being directed at his environment or lack of it.) Heads. GUIL: A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability. (He slips a coin over his shoulder as he goes to look upstage.) ROS: Heads. (GUIL, examining the confines of the stage, flips over two more coins, as he does so, one by one of course. ROS announces each of them as "heads".) GUIL (musing): The law of probability, as it has been oddly asserted, is something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys (he has surprised himself)... if six monkeys were... ROS: Game? GUIL: Were they? ROS: Are you? GUIL (understanding): Games. (Flips a coin.) The law of averages, if I have got this right, means that if six monkeys were thrown up in the air for long enough they would land on their tails about as often as they would land on their - ROS: Heads. (He picks up the coin.) GUIL: Which at first glance does not strike one as a particularly rewarding speculation, in either sense, even without the monkeys. I mean you wouldn't bet on it. I mean I would, but you wouldn't... (As he flips a coin.) ROS: Heads. GUIL: Would you? (Flips a coin.) ROS: Heads. (Repeat.) Heads. (He looks up at GUIL - embarrassed laugh.) Getting a bit of a bore, isn't it? GUIL (coldly): A bore? ROS: Well... GUIL: What about suspense? ROS (innocently): What suspense? (Small pause.) GUIL: It must be the law of diminishing returns... I feel the spell about to be broken. (Energising himself somewhat.) (He takes out a coin, spins it high, catches it, turns it over on to the back of his other hand, studies the coin - and tosses it to ROS. His energy deflates and he sits.) Well, it was a even chance... if my calculations are correct. ROS: Eighty-five in a row - beaten the record! GUIL: Don't be absurd. ROS: Easily! GUIL (angry): Is the it, then? Is that all? ROS: What? GUIL: A new record? Is that as far as you prepared to go? ROS: Well... GUIL: No questions? Not even a pause? ROS: You spun it yourself. GUIL: Not a flicker of doubt? ROS (aggrieved, aggressive): Well, I won - didn't I? GUIL (approaches him - quieter): And if you'd lost? If they'd come down against you, eighty -five times, one after another, just like that? ROS (dumbly): Eighty-five in a row? Tails? GUIL: Yes! What would you think? ROS (doubtfully): Well... (Jocularly.) Well, I'd have a good look at your coins for a start! GUIL (retiring): I'm relieved. At least we can still count on self-interest as a predictable factor... I suppose it's the last to go. Your capacity for trust made me wonder if perhaps... you, alone... (He turns on him suddenly, reaches out a hand.) Touch. (ROS claps his hand. GUIL pulls him up to him.) (More intensely): We have been spinning coins together since - (He releases him almost as violently.) This is not the first time we spun coins! ROS: Oh no - we've been spinning coins for as long as I remember. GUIL: How long is that? ROS: I forget. Mind you - eighty-five times! GUIL: Yes? ROS: It'll take some time beating, I imagine. GUIL: Is that what you imagine? Is that it? No fear? ROS: Fear? GUIL (in fury - flings a coin on the ground): Fear! The crack that might flood your brain with light! ROS: Heads... (He puts it in his bag.) (GUIL sits despondently. He takes a coin, spins it, lets it fall between his feet. He looks at it, picks it up; throws it to ROS, who puts it in his bag.) (GUIL takes another coin, spins it, catches it, turns it over on to his other hand, looks at it, and throws it to ROS who puts it in his bag.) (GUIL tales a third coin, spins it, catches it in his right hand, turns it over on to his loft wrist, lobs it in the air, catches it with his left hand, raises his left leg, throws the coin up under it, catches it and turns it over on to the top of his head, where it sits. ROS comes, looks at it, puts it in his bag.) ROS: I'm afraid - GUIL: So am I. ROS: I'm afraid it isn't your day. GUIL: I'm afraid it is. (Small pause.) ROS: Eighty-nine. GUIL: It must be indicative of something, besides the redistribution of wealth. (He muses.) List of possible explanations. One: I'm willing it. Inside where nothing shows, I'm the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered past. (He spins a coin at ROS.) ROS: Heads. GUIL: Two: time has stopped dead, and a single experience of one coin being spun once has been repeated ninety times... (He flips a coin, looks at it, tosses it to ROS.) On the whole, doubtful. Three: divine intervention, that is to say, a good turn from above concerning him, cf. children of Israel, or retribution from above concerning me, cf. Lot's wife. Four: a spectacular vindication of the principle that each individual coin spun individually (he spins one) is as likely to come down heads as tails and therefore should cause no surprise that each individual time it does. (It does. He tosses it to ROS.) ROS: I've never known anything like it! GUIL: And syllogism: One, he has never known anything like it. Two: he has never known anything to write home about. Three, it's nothing to write home about... Home... What's the first thing you remember? ROS: Oh, let's see...The first thing that comes into my head, you mean? GUIL: No - the first thing you remember. ROS: Ah. (Pause.) No, it's no good, it's gone. It was a long time ago. GUIL (patient but edged): You don't get my meaning. What is the first thing after all the things you've forgotten? ROS: Oh. I see. (Pause.) I've forgotten the question. GUIL: How long have you suffered from a bad memory? ROS: I can't remember. (GUIL paces.) GUIL: Are you happy? ROS: What? GUIL: Content? At ease? ROS: I suppose so. GUIL: What are you going to do now? ROS: I don't know. What do you want to do? GUIL: I have no desires. None. (He stops pacing dead.) There was a messenger... that's right. We were sent for. (He wheels at ROS and raps out.) Syllogism the second: one: probability is a factor which operates within natural forces. Two, probability is not operating as a factor. Three, we are now within un-, sub- or supernatural forces. Discuss. (ROS is suitably startled - Acidly.) Not too heatedly. ROS: I'm sorry, I - What's the matter with you? GUIL: A scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defence against the pure emotion of fear. Keep tight hold and continue while there's time. Now - counter to the previous syllogism: tricky one, follow me carefully, it may prove a comfort. If we postulate, and we just have, that within un-, sub- or supernatural forces the probability is that the law of probability will not operate as a factor, then we must accept that the probability of the first part will not operate as a factor, in which case the law of probability will operate as a factor within un-, sub- or supernatural forces. And since it obviously hasn't been doing so, we can take it that we are not held within un-, sub- or supernatural forces after all; in all probability, that is. Which is a great relief to me personally. (Small pause.) Which is all very well, except that - (He continues with tight hysteria, under control.) We have been spinning coins together since I don't know when, and in all that time (if it is all that time) I don't suppose either of us was more than a couple of gold pieces up or down. I hope that doesn't sound surprising because it's very unsurprisingness is something I am trying to keep hold of. The equanimity of your average pitcher and tosser of coins depends upon a law, or rather a tendency, or let us say a probability, or at any rate a mathematically calculable chance, which ensures that he will not upset himself by losing too much nor upset his opponent by winning too often. This made for a kind of harmony and a kind of confidence. It related the fortuitous and ordained into a reassuring union which we recognised as nature. The sun came up about as often as it went down, in the long run, and a coin showed heads about as often as it showed tails. Then a messenger arrived. We had been sent for. Nothing else happened. Ninety-two coins sun consecutively have come down heads ninety-two consecutive times... and for the last three minutes on the wind of a windless day I have heard the sound of drums and flute... ROS (cutting his fingernails): Another curious scientific phenomenon is the fact that the fingernails grow after death, as does the beard. GUIL: What? ROS (loud): Beard! GUIL: But you're not dead. ROS (irritated): I didn't say they started to grow after death! (Pause, calmer.) The fingernails also grow before birth, though not the beard. GUIL: What? ROS (shouts): Beard! What's the matter with you? (Reflectively.) The toenails, on the other hand, never grow at all. GUIL (bemused): The toenails never grow at all? ROS: Do they? It's a funny thing - I cut my fingernails all the time, and every time I think to cut them, they need cutting. Now, for instance. And yet, I never, to the best of my knowledge, cut my toenails. They ought to be curled under my feet by now, but it doesn't happen. I never think about them. Perhaps I cut them absent-mindedly, when I'm thinking of something else. GUIL (tensed up by this rambling): Do you remember the first thing that happen today? ROS (promptly): I woke up, I suppose. (Triggered.) Oh - I've got it now - that man, a foreigner, he woke us up - GUIL: A messenger. (He relaxes, sits.) ROS: That's it - pale sky before dawn, a man standing on his saddle to bang on the shutters - shouts - What's all the row about?! Clear off! - but then he called our names. You remember that - this man woke us up. GUIL: Yes. ROS: We were sent for. GUIL: Yes. ROS: That's why we're here. (He looks round, seems doubtful, then the explanation.) Travelling. GUIL: Yes. ROS (dramatically): It was urgent - a matter of extreme urgency, a royal summons, his very words: official business and no questions asked - lights in the stable-yard; saddle up and off headlong and hotfoot across the land, our guides outstripped in breakneck pursuit of our duty! Fearful lest we come too late. (Small pause.) GUIL: Too late for what? ROS: How do I know? We haven't got there yet. GUIL: Then what are we doing here, I ask myself. ROS: You might well ask. GUIL: We better get on. ROS: You might well think. GUIL: Without much conviction; we better get on. ROS (actively): Right! (Pause.) On where? GUIL: Forward. ROS (forward to footlights): Ah. (Hesitates.) Which way do we - (He turns round.) Which way did we - ? GUIL: Practically starting from scratch... An awakening, a man standing on his saddle to bang on the shutters, our names shouted in a certain dawn, a message, a summons... A new record for pitch and toss. We have not been.. picked out... simply to be abandoned... set loose to find our own way... We are entitled to some direction... I would have thought. ROS (alert, listening): I say - ! I say - (GUIL rises himself.) GUIL: Yes? ROS: Like a band. (He looks around, laughs embarrassedly, expiating himself.) It sounded like - a band. Drums. GUIL: Yes. ROS (relaxes): It couldn't have been real. GUIL: "The colours red, blue and green are real. The colour yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody" - demolish. ROS (at edge of stage): It must have been thunder. Like drums... (By the end of the next speech, the band is faintly audible.) GUIL: A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until - "My God," says the second man, "I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn." At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are, the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience... "Look, look" recites the crowd. "A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer." ROS (eagerly): I knew all along it was a band. GUIL (tiredly): He knew all along it was a band. ROS: Here they come! GUIL (at the last moment before they enter - wistfully): I'm sorry it wasn't the unicorn. It would have been nice to have unicorns. (The TRAGEDIANS are six in number, including a small BOY(ALFRED). Two pull a cart piled up with props and belongings. There is also a DRUMMER, a HORN-PLAYER and a FLAUTIST. The SPOKESMAN ("the PLAYER") has no instrument. He brings up the rear and is the first to notice them.) PLAYER: Halt! (The GROUP turns and halts.) (Joyously.) An audience! (ROS and GUIL half rise.) Don't move! (They sink back. He regards them fondly.) Perfect! A lucky thing we came along. ROS: For us? PLAYER: Let us hope so. But to meet two gentlemen on the road - we would not hope to meet them off it. ROS: No? PLAYER: Well met, in fact, and just in time. ROS: Why's that? PLAYER: Why, we grow rusty and you catch us at the very point of decadence - by this time tomorrow we might have forgotten everything we ever knew. That's a thought, isn't it? (He laughs generously.) We'd be back where we started - improvising. ROS: Tumblers, are you? PLAYER: We can give you a tumble if that's your taste and times being what they are... Otherwise, for a jingle of coin we can do you a selection of gory romances, full of fine cadence and corpses, pirated from Italian; and it doesn't take much to make a jingle - even a single coin has music in it. (They ALL flourish and bow, raggedly.) Tragedians, at your command. (ROS and GUIL have got to their feet.) ROS: My name is Guildenstern, and this is Rosencrantz. (GUIL confers briefly with him.) (Without embarrassment.) I'm sorry - his name's Guildenstern, and I'm Rosencrantz. PLAYER: A pleasure. We've played to bigger, of course, but quality counts for something. I recognised you at once - ROS: And who are we? PLAYER: - as fellow artists. ROS: I thought we were gentlemen. PLAYER: For some of us it is performance, for others, patronage. They are two sides of the same coin, or, let us say, being as there are so many of us, the same side of two coins. (Bows again.) Don't clap too loudly - it's a very old world. ROS: What is your line? PLAYER: Tragedy, sir. Deaths and disclosures, universal and particular, denouements both unexpected and inexorable, transvestite melodrama on all levels including the suggestive. We transport you into the world of intrigue and illusion... clowns, if you like, murderers - we can do you ghosts and battles, on the skirmish levels, heroes, villains, tormented lovers - set pieces in the poetic vein; we can do you rapiers or rape or both, by all means, faithless wives and ravished virgins - flagrante delicto at a price, but that comes under realism for which there are special terms. Getting warm, am I? ROS (doubtfully): Well, I don't know... PLAYER: It costs little to watch, and little more if you happen to get caught up in the action, if that's you taste and times being what they are. ROS: What are they? PLAYER: Indifferent. ROS: Bad? PLAYER: Wicked. Now what precisely is your pleasure? (He turns to the TRAGEDIANS.) Gentlemen, disport yourselves. (The TRAGEDIANS shuffle into some kind of a line.) There! See anything you like? ROS (doubtful, innocent): What do they do? PLAYER: Let your imagination run riot. They are beyond surprise. ROS: And how much? PLAYER: To take part? ROS: To watch. PLAYER: Watch what? ROS: A private performance. PLAYER: How private? ROS: Well, there are only two of us. Is that enough? PLAYER: For an audience, disappointing. For voyeurs, about average. ROS: What's the difference? PLAYER: Ten guilders. ROS (horrified): Ten guilders! PLAYER: I mean eight. ROS: Together? PLAYER: Each. I don't think you understand - ROS: What are you saying? PLAYER: What am I saying - seven. ROS: Where have you been? PLAYER: Roundabout. A nest of children carries the custom of the town. Juvenile companies, they are the fashion. But they cannot match our repertoire... we'll stoop to anything if that's your bent... (He regards ROS meaningfully but ROS returns the stare blankly.) ROS: They'll row up. PLAYER (giving up): There's one being born every minute. (To TRAGEDIANS.) On-ward! (The TRAGEDIANS start to resume their burdens and their journey. GUIL stirs himself at last.) GUIL: Where are you going? PLAYER: Ha-alt! (They halt and turn.) Home, sir. GUIL: Where from? PLAYER: Home. We're travelling people. We take our chances where we find them. GUIL: It was the chance, then? PLAYER: Chance? GUIL: You found us. PLAYER: Oh yes. GUIL: You were looking? PLAYER: Oh no. GUIL: Chance, then. PLAYER: Or fate. GUIL: Yours or ours? PLAYER: It could hardly be one without the other. GUIL: Fate, then. PLAYER: Oh, yes. We have no control. Tonight we play to the court. Or the night after. Or to the tavern. Or not. GUIL: Perhaps I can use my influence. PLAYER: At the tavern? GUIL: At the court. I would say I have some influence. PLAYER: Would you say so? GUIL: I have influence yet. PLAYER: Yet what? (GUIL seizes the PLAYER violently.) GUIL: I have influence! (The PLAYER does not resist. GUIL loosens his hold.) (More calmly.) You said something - about getting caught up in the action - PLAYER (gaily freeing himself): I did! - I did! - You're quicker than your friend... (Confidingly.) Now for a handful of guilders I happen to have a private and uncut performance of the Rape of the Sabine Women - or rather woman, or rather Alfred - (Over his shoulder.) Get your skirt on, Alfred - (The BOY starts struggling into a female robe.) ... and for eight you can participate. (GUIL backs, PLAYER follows.) ... taking either part. (GUIL backs.) ... or both for ten. (GUIL tries to turn away, PLAYER holds his sleeve.) ... with encores - (GUIL smashes the PLAYER across the face. The PLAYER recoils. GUIL stands trembling.) (Resigned and quiet.) Get your skirt off, Alfred... (ALFRED struggles out of his half-on robe.) GUIL (shaking with rage and fright): It could have been - it didn't have to be obscene... It could have been - a bird out of season, dropping bright-feathered on my shoulder... It could have been a tongueless dwarf standing by the road to point the way... I was prepared. But it's this, isn't it? No enigma, no dignity, nothing classical, portentous, only this - a comic pornographer and a rabble of prostitutes... PLAYER (acknowledging the description with a sweep of his hat, bowing: sadly): You should have caught us in better times. We were purists then. (Straightens up.) On-ward. (The PLAYERS make to leave.) ROS (his voice has changed: he has caught on): Excuse me! PLAYER: Ha-alt! (They halt.) A-al-l-fred! (ALFRED resumes the struggle. The PLAYER comes forward.) ROS: You're not - ah - exclusively players, then? PLAYER: We're inclusively players, sir. ROS: So you give - exhibitions? PLAYER: Performances, sir. ROS: Yes, of course. There's more money in that, is there? PLAYER: There's more trade, sir. ROS: Times being what they are. PLAYER: Yes. ROS: Indifferent. PLAYER: Completely. ROS: You know I'd no idea - PLAYER: No - ROS: I mean, I've heard of - but I've never actually - PLAYER: No. ROS: I mean, what exactly do you do? PLAYER: We keep to our usual stuff, more or less, only inside out. We do on stage the things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else. ROS (nervy, loud): Well, I'm not really the type of man who - no, but don't hurry off - sit down and tell us about some of the things people ask you to do - (The PLAYER turns away.) PLAYER: On-ward! ROS: Just a minute! (They turn and look at him without expression.) Well, all right - I wouldn't mind seeing - just an idea of the kind of - (bravely). What will you do for that? (And tosses a single coin on the ground between them.) (The PLAYER spits at the coin from where he stands.) PLAYER (to ROS, coldly): Leave it lying there. Perhaps when we come back this way we'll be that muck cheaper. (The TRAGEDIANS demur, trying to get the coin. He kicks and cuffs them back.) On! (ALFRED is still half in and half out of his robe. The PLAYER cuffs him.) (To ALFRED) What are you playing at? (ROS is shamed into fury.) ROS: Filth! Disgusting - oh, I know the kind of filth you trade in - I'll report you to the authorities - perverts! I know your game all right, it's all filth! (The PLAYERS are about to leave. GUIL remained detached.) GUIL (casually): Do you like a bet? PLAYER: Ha-alt! (The TRAGEDIANS look interested. The PLAYER comes forward.) PLAYER: What kind of bet do you have in mind? (GUIL walks half the distance towards the PLAYER, stops with his foot over the coin.) GUIL: Double or quits. PLAYER: Well... heads. (GUIL raises his foot. The PLAYER bends. The TRAGEDIANS crowd round. Relief and congratulations. The PLAYER picks up the coin. GUIL throws him a second coin.) GUIL: Again? (Some of the TRAGEDIANS are for it, others against. The PLAYER nods and tosses the coin.) GUIL: Heads. (It is. H picks it up.) Again. (GUIL spins the coin.) PLAYER: Heads. (It is. PLAYER picks up coin. He has two coins again. He spins one.) GUIL: Heads. (It is. GUIL picks it up. Then tosses immediately.) PLAYER (fractional hesitation): Tails. (But it's heads. GUIL picks it up. PLAYER tosses down his last coin by the way of paying it up, and turns away. GUIL doesn't pick it up; he puts his foot on it.) GUIL: Heads. PLAYER: No! (Pause. The TRAGEDIANS are against this.) (Apologetically.) They don't like the odds. GUIL: After six in a row? I'd say they were in your favor. PLAYER: No. GUIL (lifts his foot; squats; picks up the coin still squatting; looks up): You were right - heads. (Spins it, slaps his hand on it, on the floor.) Heads I win. PLAYER: No. GUIL (uncovers coin): Right again. (Repeat.) Heads I win. PLAYER: No. GUIL (uncovers coin): And right again. (Repeat.) Heads I win. PLAYER: No! (He turns away, the TRAGEDIANS with him. GUIL stands up, comes close.) GUIL: Would you believe it? (Stands back, relaxes, smiles.) Bet me the year of my birth doubled is an odd number. PLAYER: Your birth - ! GUIL: If you don't trust me don't bet with me. PLAYER: Would you trust me? GUIL: Bet me then. PLAYER: My birth? GUIL: Odd numbers you win. PLAYER: You're on - (The TRAGEDIANS have come forward, wide awake.) GUIL: Good. Year of your birth. Double it. Even numbers I win, odd numbers I lose. (Silence. An awful sigh as the TRAGEDIANS realise that any number doubled is even. Then a terrible row as they object. Then a terrible silence.) PLAYER: We have no money. (GUIL turns to him.) GUIL: Ah. Then what have you got? (The PLAYER silently brings ALFRED forward. GUIL regards ALFRED sadly.) Was it for this? PLAYER: It's the best we've got. GUIL (looking up and around): Then the times are bad indeed. (The PLAYER starts to speak, protestation, but GUIL turns on him viciously.) The very air stinks. (The PLAYER moves back. GUIL moves down to the footlight and turns.) Come here, Alfred. (ALFRED moves down and stands, frightened and small.) (Gently): Do you lose often? Alfred: Yes, sir. GUIL: Then what could you have to lose? Alfred: Nothing, sir. (Pause. GUIL regards him.) GUIL: Do you like being... an actor? Alfred: No, sir. (GUIL looks around him, at the audience.) GUIL: You and I, Alfred - we could create a dramatic precedent here. (And ALFRED, who has been near tears, starts to sniffle.) Come, come, Alfred, this is no way to fill the theatres of Europe. (The PLAYER has moved down, to remonstrate with ALFRED. GUIL cuts him off again.) (Viciously) Do you know any good plays? PLAYER: Plays? ROS (coming forward, flattering shyly): Exhibitions... GUIL: I thought you were actors. PLAYER (dawning): Oh. Oh, well, we are. We are. But there been much call - GUIL: You lost. Well, then - one of the Greeks, perhaps? You're familiar with the tragedies of antiquity, are you? The great homicidal classics? Matri, patri, fratri, sorrori, uxori and it goes without saying - ROS: Saucy - GUIL: - Suicidal - hm? Maidens aspiring to godheads - ROS: And vice versa - GUIL: Your kind of thing, is it? PLAYER: Well, no, I can't say it is, really. We're more of the blood, love and rhetoric school. GUIL: Well, I'll leave the choice to you, if there is anything to choose between them. PLAYER: They're hardly divisible, sir - well, I can do you blood and love without rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can't do you love and rhetoric without blood. Blood is compulsory - they're all blood, you see. GUIL: Is this what people want? PLAYER: It's what we do. (Small pause. He turns away.) (GUIL touches Alfred on the shoulder.) GUIL (wry, gentle): Thank you, we'll let you know. (The PLAYER has moved upstage. Alfred follows.) PLAYER (to TRAGEDIANS): Thirty-eight! ROS (moving across, fascinated and hopeful): Position? PLAYER: Sir? ROS: One of your - tableaux? PLAYER: No, sir. ROS: Oh. PLAYER (to TRAGEDIANS, now departing with their cart, already taking various props off it.) Entrances there and there (indicating upstage). (The PLAYER has not moved his position for his last four lines. He does not move now. GUIL waits.) GUIL: Well... aren't you going to change into costume? PLAYER: I never change out, sir. GUIL: Always in character. PLAYER: That's it. (Pause.) GUIL: Aren't you going to - come on? PLAYER: I am on. GUIL: But if you are on, you can't come on. Can you? PLAYER: I start on. GUIL: But it hasn't started. Go on. We'll look out for you. PLAYER: I'll give you a wave. (He doesn't move. His immobility is now pointed and getting awkward. Pause. ROS walks up to him till they are face to face.) ROS: Excuse me. (Pause. The PLAYER lifts his downstage foot. It was covering GUIL's coin. ROS puts his foot on the coin. Smiles.) Thank you. (The PLAYER turns and goes. ROS has bent for the coin.) GUIL (moving out): Come on. ROS: I say - that was lucky. GUIL (turning): What? ROS: It was tails. (He tosses the coin to GUIL who catches it. Simultaneously - a lighting change sufficient to alter the exterior mood into interior, but nothing violent.) And OPELIA runs on in some alarm, holding up her skirts - followed by HAMLET. Note: The resemblance between HAMLET and The PLAYER is superficial but noticeable. (OPHELIA has been sewing and she holds the garment. They are both mute. HAMLET, with his doublet all unbraced, no hat upon his head, his stockings fouled, ungartered and double-gyved to his ankle, pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other... and with a look so piteous, he takes her by the wrist and holds her hard, then he goes to the length of his arm and with his other hand over his brow, falls to such perusal of her face as he would draw it... At last, with a little shaking of his arm, and thrice his head waving up and down, he raises a sigh so piteous and profound that it does seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being. That done he lets her go, and with his head over his shoulder turned, he goes backwards without taking his eyes off her... she runs off in the opposite direction.) (ROS and GUIL have frozen. GUIL unfreezes first. He jumps at ROS.) GUIL: Come on! (But a flourish - enter CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE, attended.) CLAUDIUS: Welcome, dear Rosencrantz... (he raises a hand at GUIL while ROS bows - GUIL bows late and hurriedly.)... and Guildenstern. (He raises a hand at ROS while GUIL bows to him - ROS is still straightening up from his previous bow and half way up he bows down again. With his head down, he twists to look at GUIL, who is on the way up.) Moreover that we did much long to see you, The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sanding. (ROS and GUIL still adjusting their clothing for CLAUDIUS's presence.) Something have you heard Of Hamlet's transformation, so call it, Sith nor th'exterior nor inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be, More than his father's death, that thus hath put him, So much from th'understanding of himself, I cannot dream of. I entreat you both That, being of so young days brought up with him And sith so neighbored to his youth and haviour That you ... safe your rest here on our court Some little time, so by your companies To draw him on to pleasures and to gather So much as from occasion you may glean, Whether ought to us unknown afflicts him thus, That opened lies within our remedy. GERTRUDE: Good (fractional suspense) gentlemen... (They both bow.) He hath much talked of you, And sure I am, two men there is not living To whom he more adheres. If it will please you To show us so much gentry and good will As to expand your time with us awhile For the supply and profit of our hope, Your visitation shall receive such thanks As fits the king's remembrance. ROS: Both your majesties Might, by the sovereign power you have on us, Put your dread pleasure more into command Than to entreaty. GUIL: But we both obey, And here give up ourselves in the full bent To lay our service freely at your feet, To be commanded. CLAUDIUS: Thanks, Rosencrantz (turning to ROS who is caught unprepared, while GUIL bows) and gentle Guildenstern (turning to GUIL who is bent double). GERTRUDE (correcting): Thanks, Guildenstern (turning to ROS, who bows as GUIL checks upward movement to bow too - both bent double, squinting at each other)... and gentle Rosencrantz. (Turning to GUIL, both straightening up - GUIL checks again and bows again.) And I beseech you instantly to visit My too much changed son. Go, some of you, And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is. (To ATTENDANTS exit backwards, indicating that ROS and GUIL should follow.) GUIL: Heaven make our presence and our practices Pleasant and helpful to him. GERTRUDE: Ay, amen! (ROS and GUIL move towards and downstage wing. Before they get there, POLONIUS enters. They stop and bow to him. He nods and hurries upstage to CLAUDIUS. They turn to look at him but lose interest and come down to footlights. POLINIUS meanwhile calling to CLAUDIUS.) POLONIUS: The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, are joyfully returned. CLAUDIUS: Thou still hast been the father of good news. POLONIUS: Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege, I hold my duty as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious King; And I do think or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail of policy for sure As it hath used to do, that I have found The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy... (Exeunt - leaving ROS and GUIL) ROS: I want to go home. GUIL: Don't let them confuse you. ROS: I'm out of my step here - GUIL: We'll soon be home and high - dry and home - I'll - ROS: It's all over my depth - GUIL: I'll hie you home and - ROS: - out of my head - GUIL: - dry you high and - ROS (cracking, high): - over my step over my head body! - I tell you it's all stopping to a death, it's boding to a depth, stepping to a head, it's all heading to a dead stop - GUIL (the nursemaid): There!... and we'll soon be home and dry... and high and dry... (Rapidly.) Has it ever happened to you that all of a sudden and for no reason at all you haven't the faintest idea how to spell the word - "wife" - or "house" - because when you write it down you just can't remember ever having seen those letters in that order before...? ROS: I remember... GUIL: Yes? ROS: I remember there were no questions. GUIL: There were always questions. To exchange one set for another is no great matter. ROS: Answers, yes. There were answers to everything. GUIL: You've forgotten. ROS (flaring): I haven't forgotten - how I used to remember my own name - and yours, oh ): I haven't forgotten - how I used to remember my own name - and yours, oh yes! There were answers everywhere you looked. There was no question about it - people knew who I was and if they didn't they asked and I told them. GUIL: You did, the trouble is each of them is... plausible, without being instinctive. All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque. A man standing in his saddle in the half-lit half-alive dawn banged on the shutters and called two names. He was just a hat and the cloak levitating in the grey plume of his own breath, but when he called we came. That much is certain - we came. ROS: Well I can tell you I'm sick to death of it. I don't care one way or another, so why don't you make up your mind. GUIL: We can't afford anything quite so arbitrary. Nor did we come all this way for a christening. All that - preceded us. But we are comparatively fortunate; we might have been left to sift the whole field of human nomenclature, like two blind men looting a bazaar for their own portraits... At least we are presented with alternatives. ROS: Well as from now - GUIL: - But not choice. ROS: You made me look ridiculous in there. GUIL: I looked as ridiculous as you did. ROS (an anguished cry): Consistency is all I ask! GUIL (low, wry rhetoric): Give us this day our daily mask. ROS (a dying fall): I want to go home. (Moves.) Which way did we come in? I've lost my sense of direction. GUIL: The only beginning is birth and the only end is death - if you can't count on that, what can you count on? (They connect again.) ROS: We don't owe anything to anyone. GUIL: We've been caught up. Your smallest action sets off another somewhere else, and is set off by it. Keep an eye open, an ear cocked. Tread warily, follow instructions. We'll be all right. ROS: For how long? GUIL: Till events have played themselves out. There's a logic at work - it's all done for you, don't worry. Enjoy it. Relax. To be taken in hand and led, like being a child again, even without the innocence, a child - It's like being given a prize, an extra slice of childhood when you least expect it, as a prize for being good, or a compensation for never having had one... Do I contradict myself? ROS: I don't remember. What have we got to go on? GUIL: We have been briefed. Hamlet's transformation. What do you recollect? ROS: Well, he's changed, hasn't he? The exterior and inward man fails to resemble - GUIL: Draw him on to pleasures - glean what afflicts him. ROS: Something more than his father's death - GUIL: He's always talking about us - there aren't two people living whom he dotes on more than us. ROS: We cheer him up - find out what's the matter - GUIL: Exactly, it's the matter of asking the right questions and giving away as little as we can. It's a game. ROS: And then we can go? GUIL: And receive such thanks as fits a king's remembrance. ROS: I like the sound of that. What do you think he means by remembrance? GUIL: He doesn't forget his friends. ROS: Wouldn't you care to estimate? GUIL: Difficult to say, really - come kings tend to be amnesiac, others I suppose - the opposite, whatever that is... ROS: Yes - but - GUIL: Elephantine...? ROS: Hot how long - how much? GUIL: Retentive - he's a very retentive king, a royal retainer... ROS: What are you playing at? GUIL: Words, words. They're all we have to go on. (Pause.) ROS: Shouldn't we be doing something - constructive? GUIL: What did you have in mind?... A short, blunt human pyramid...? ROS: We could go. GUIL: Where? ROS: After him. GUIL: Why? They've got us placed now - if we start moving around, we'll all be chasing each other all night. (Hiatus.) ROS (at footlights): How very intriguing! (Turns.) I feel like a spectator - an appalling business. The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute... GUIL: See anyone? ROS: No. You? GUIL: No. (At footlights.) What a fine persecution - to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened... (Pause.) We've had no practice. ROS: We could play at questions. GUIL: What good would that do? ROS: Practice! GUIL: Statement! One-love. ROS: Cheating! GUIL: How? ROS: I hadn't started yet. GUIL: Statement. Two-love. ROS: Are you counting that? GUIL: What? ROS: Are you counting that? GUIL: Foul! No repetitions. Three-love. First game to... ROS: I'm not going to play if you're going to be like that. GUIL: Whose serve? ROS: Hah? GUIL: Foul! No grunts. Love-one. ROS: Whose go? GUIL: Why? ROS: Why not? GUIL: What for? ROS: Foul! No synonyms! One-all. GUIL: What in God's name is going all? ROS: Foul! No rhetoric. Two-one. GUIL: What does it all add up to? ROS: Can't you guess? GUIL: Were you addressing me? ROS: Is there anyone else? GUIL: Who? ROS: How would I know? GUIL: Why do you ask? ROS: Are you serious? GUIL: Was that rhetoric? ROS: No. GUIL: Statement! Two-all. Game point. ROS: What's the matter with you today? GUIL: When? ROS: What? GUIL: Are you deaf? ROS: Am I dead? GUIL: Yes or no? ROS: Is there a choice? GUIL: Is there a God? ROS: Foul! No non sequiturs, three-two, one game all. GUIL (seriously): What's your name? ROS: What's yours? GUIL: I asked you first. ROS: Statement. One-love. GUIL: What's your name when you're at home? ROS: What's yours? GUIL: When I'm at home? ROS: Is it different at home? GUIL: What home? ROS: Haven't you got one? GUIL: Why do you ask? ROS: What are you driving at? GUIL (with emphasis): What's your name?! ROS: Repetition. Two-love. Match point to me. GUIL (seizing him violently): WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? ROS: Rhetoric! Game and match! (Pause.) Where's it going to end? GUIL: That's the question. ROS: It's all questions. GUIL: Do you think it matters? ROS: Doesn't it matter to you? GUIL: Why should it matter? ROS: What does it matter why? GUIL (teasing gently): Doesn't it matter why it matters? ROS (rounding on him): What's the matter with you? (Pause.) GUIL: It doesn't matter. ROS (voice in the wilderness): ... What's the game? GUIL: What are the rules? (Enter HAMLET behind, crossing the stage, reading a book - as he is about to disappear GUIL notices him.) GUIL (sharply): Rosencrantz! ROS (jumps): What? (HAMLET goes. Triumph dawns on them, they smile.) GUIL: There! How was that? ROS: Clever! GUIL: Natural? ROS: Instinctive. GUIL: Got it in your head? ROS: I take my hat off you. GUIL: Shake hands. (They do.) ROS: Now I'll try you - Guil - ! GUIL: - Not yet - catch me unawares. ROS: Right. (They separate. Pause. Aside to GUIL.) Ready? GUIL (explodes): Don't be stupid. ROS: Sorry. (Pause.) GUIL (snaps): Guildenstern! ROS (jumps): What? (He is immediately crestfallen, GUIL is disgusted.) GUIL: Consistency is all I ask! ROS (guilty): Give us this day our daily week... (Beat.) ROS: Who was that? GUIL: Didn't you know him? ROS: He didn't know me. GUIL: He didn't see you. ROS: I didn't see him. GUIL: We shall see. I hardly knew him, he's changed. ROS: You could see that? GUIL: Transformed. ROS: How do you know? GUIL: Inside and out. ROS: I see. GUIL: He's not himself. ROS: He's changed. GUIL: I could see that. (Beat.) Glean what afflicts him. ROS: Me? GUIL: Him. ROS: How? GUIL: Question and answer. Old ways are the best ways. ROS: He's afflicted. GUIL: You question, I'll answer. ROS: He's not himself, you know. GUIL: I'm him, you see. (Beat.) ROS: Who am I then? GUIL: You're yourself. ROS: And he's you? GUIL: Not a bit of it. ROS: Are you afflicted? GUIL: That's the idea. Are you ready? ROS: Let's go back a bit. GUIL: I'm afflicted. ROS: I see. GUIL: Glean what afflicts me. ROS: Right. GUIL: Question and answer. ROS: How should I begin? GUIL: Address me. ROS: My dear Guildenstern! GUIL (quietly): You've forgotten - haven't you? ROS: My dear Rosencrantz! GUIL (great control): I don't think you quite understand. What we are attempting is a hypothesis in which I answer for him, while you ask me questions. ROS: Ah! Ready? GUIL: You know what to do? ROS: What? GUIL: Are you stupid? ROS: Pardon? GUIL: Are you deaf? ROS: Did you speak? GUIL (admonishing): Not now - ROS: Statement. GUIL (shouts): Not now! (Pause.) If I had my doubts, or rather hopes, they are dispelled. What could we possibly have in common except our situation? (They separate and sit.) Perhaps he'll come back this way. ROS: Should we go? GUIL: Why? (Pause.) ROS (starts up. Snaps fingers.): Oh! You mean - you pretend to be him, and I ask you questions! GUIL (dry): Very good. ROS: You had me confused. GUIL: I could see I had. ROS: How should I begin? GUIL: Address me. (They stand and face each other, posing.) ROS: My honoured Lord! GUIL: My dear Rosencrantz! (Pause.) ROS: Am I pretending to be you, then? GUIL: Certainly not. If you like. Shall we continue? ROS: Question and answer. GUIL: Right. ROS: Right. My honoured Lord! GUIL: My dear fellow! ROS: How are you? GUIL: Afflicted! ROS: Really? In what way? GUIL: Transformed. ROS: Inside or out? GUIL: Both. ROS: I see. (Pause.) No much new there. GUIL: Go into details. Delve. Probe the background, establish the situation. ROS: So - so your uncle is the king of Denmark? GUIL: And my father before him. ROS: But surely - GUIL: You might well ask. ROS: Let me get it straight. Your father was king. You were his only son. Your father dies. You are of age. Your uncle becomes king. GUIL: Yes. ROS: Unorthodox. GUIL: Undid me. ROS: Undeniable. Where were you? GUIL: In Germany. ROS: Usurpation, then. GUIL: He slipped in. ROS: Which reminds me. GUIL: Well, it would. ROS: I don't want to be personal. GUIL: It's common knowledge. ROS: Your mother's marriage. GUIL: He slipped in. (Beat.) ROS (lugubriously): His body was still warm. GUIL: So was hers. ROS: Extraordinary. GUIL: Indecent. ROS: Hasty. GUIL: Suspicious. ROS: It makes you think. GUIL: Don't think I haven't though of it. ROS: And with her husband's brother. GUIL: They were close. ROS: She went to him - GUIL: - Too close - ROS: - for comfort. GUIL: It looks bad. ROS: It adds up. GUIL: Incest and adultery. ROS: Would you go so far? GUIL: Never. ROS: To sum up: your father, whom you love, dies, you are his heir, you come back to find that hardly was the corpse cold before his young brother popped on to his throne and into his sheets, thereby offending both legal and natural practice. Now, why exactly you behaving in this extraordinary manner? GUIL: I can't imagine. (Pause.) But all that is well known, common property. Yet he sent for us. And we did come. ROS (alert, ear cocked): I say! I heard music - GUIL: We're here. ROS: - Like a band - I thought I heard a band. GUIL: Rosencrantz... ROS (absently, still listening): What? (Pause, short.) GUIL (gently wry): Guildenstern... ROS (irritated by the repetition): What? GUIL: Don't you discriminate at all? ROS (turning dumbly): What? (Pause.) GUIL: Go and see if he's there. ROS: Who? GUIL: There. (ROS goes to an upstage wing, looks, returns, formally making his report.) ROS: Yes. GUIL: What is he doing? (ROS repeats movement.) ROS: Talking. GUIL: To himself? (ROS starts to move. GUIL cuts him impatiently.) Is he alone? ROS: No. GUIL: Then he's not talking to himself, is he? ROS: Not by himself... Coming this way, I think. (Shiftily.) Should we go? GUIL: Why? We're marked now. (HAMLET enters, backwards, talking, followed by POLONIUS, upstage. ROS and GUIL occupy the two downstage corners looking upstage.) HAMLET: ... for you yourself, sir, should be as old as I am if like a crab you could go backwards. POLONIUS (aside): Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. Will you walk out of air, my Lord? HAMLET: Into my grave. POLONIUS: Indeed, that's out of air. (HAMLET crosses to upstage exit, POLONIUS asiding unintelligibly until -) My lord, I will take my leave of you. HAMLET: You cannot take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal - except my life, except my life, except my life... POLONIUS (crossing downstage): Fare you well, my lord. (To ROS.) You go to seek Lord HAMLET? There he is. ROS (to POLONIUS) God save you, sir. (POLONIUS goes.) GUIL (calls upstage to HAMLET): My honoured Lord! ROS: My most dear Lord! (HAMLET centred upstage, turns to them.) HAMLET: My excellent good friends! How dost thou Guildenstern? (Coming downstage with am arm raised to ROS, GUIL meanwhile bowing to no greeting. HAMLET corrects himself. Still to ROS.) Ah Rosencrantz! (They laugh good naturedly at the mistake. They all meet midstage, turn upside to walk, HAMLET in the middle, arm over each shoulder.) HAMLET: Good lads, how do you both? (A fade out. That is to say, the conversation - see Shakespeare, Act II, Scene ii - runs down quickly; it is still animated and interspersed with laughter, but it is overtaken by rising music and fading light.) Act Two. 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 w