The playlet is the result of subtracting everything apart from the blood from the text of Webster’s ‘The White Devil’. To these remains are added various dialogue elements. The piece was written for Theatre Design students at Wimbledon  College of Arts. See the page ‘Bleed Out in Blood Street’ for a full introduction.

PETER, PAUL AND MARY ARE DISCOVERED SITTING AT A TABLE. A CHEST OF DRAWERS IS ALSO PRESENT.
A YOUNG JAPANESE WOMAN, AYAKO, STANDS DOWNSTAGE OF THE GROUP, SMARTLY DRESSED, HOLDING A TRAY ON WHICH ARE FOUR GLASSES OF MILK.
THE FOUR CARETAKERS, WEARING THEIR BLUE WORK CLOTHES, ENTER AND SIT ON CHAIRS ARRANGED IN A LINE AT STAGE LEFT, RUNNING FROM UPSTAGE TO DOWNSTAGE. THE CHAIRS FACE INTO THE STAGE.
THE 12 INTERPRETERS, WEARING SMART BLACK DRESSES, ENTER AND TAKE THEIR SEATS IN A ROW FACING THE JANITORS AT STAGE RIGHT.
THE THREE HANDSOME YOUTHS ENTER, CLAD IN DRESSING GOWNS. THEIR LEGS AND FEET ARE BARE. THEY SIT ON STOOLS DOWNSTAGE OF THE CARETAKERS, BESIDE THE AUDIENCE.
AYAKO SERVES EACH CARETAKER A GLASS OF FERMENTED MARE’S MILK FROM A SILVER TRAY.
AYAKO (IN JAPANESE) Here is a glass of fermented mare’s milk for your pleasure.
ONE AFTER ANOTHER, EACH INTERPRETER TRANSLATES THIS LINE INTO HER NATIVE LANGUAGE.
THE PENULTIMATE INTERPRETER IS AMERICAN.
THE FINAL INTERPRETER IS BRITISH.
EXIT AYAKO.
BOTH GROUPS STAY ON STAGE THROUGHOUT THE ENSUING PERFORMANCE.
PETER I’d like to get in touch with my feminine side.
MARY I’d like to get in touch with my masculine side.
PETER &
MARY Paul?
PAUL It sounds very wholesome.
PETER I know it’s in there.
MARY I’m dying to get to it.
PAUL It’s worth looking into.
PETER More than worth it. With the world as it is today.

MUSIC: FADES IN AND STAYS IN THROUGHOUT

THE BLOOD HELD ABOVE THE WALLS WILL START TO TRICKLE SLOWLY DOWN.
AT CERTAIN POINTS THE ACTORS WILL RELEASE THE BLOOD CONCEALED IN THEIR COSTUMES.

PETER All the good food that you eat turns to shit inside you. Why doesn’t it stay good inside you?
MARY It makes shit. There’s shit in you now.
PETER If I had a baby would I have a shit?
MARY Of course you would. There’s only one hole.
PAUL Does the baby hurt your bottom?
MARY Of course it does. It splits it.
PETER And then the shit is out all over the place.
PAUL Can you put the shit back?
PETER No. It won’t go back.
MARY How does the shit get up the bottom then?
PETER People put it there.
PAUL In the night?
MARY That’s when they push it up.
PAUL Is the baby shit?
PETER It’s a big shit.
MARY The mummy carries the shit. That’s why she sticks out.
PETER The mummy grunts when the shit comes out.
PAUL Does she love the shit?
MARY She very much loves it.
PAUL She makes it into a baby.
PETER And the shit goes inside the baby.
PAUL You can’t see it.
MARY But it comes out.
PETER Like sick.
PAUL Can she sick the baby?
MARY Sometimes the baby is sicked up.
PAUL Does she put it back?
MARY She can eat it up if she wants.
PAUL Can she stick it up her bottom?
PETER It’s better to eat it up. It’s quicker.
PAUL The baby doesn’t die.
PETER No. The baby never dies.
PAUL So where does the baby come from?
MARY The daddy.
PETER Is the baby in the daddy?
MARY The baby is in the daddy’s peepee.
PAUL My peepee has peepee coming out of it how does that make babies?
MARY The baby is in the peepee.
PAUL The daddy peepees in the mummy.
MARY Where does the peepee go?
PAUL In the mummy’s hole.
PETER What hole?
PAUL The bottom hole.
MARY The daddy is full of babies.
PETER There are as many babies as the mummy wants in the daddy.
MARY Why does’t the daddy have the baby?
PETER He gives it to the mummy.
MARY The mummies are nicer.
PAUL Does the baby shit?
MARY All the shit comes out of the baby.
PETER Does the mummy shit in the baby?
MARY Yes. The baby is full of the mummy’s shit.
PAUL And then it comes out of the baby.
PETER Onto the ground.
MARY That’s at the beginning – when the baby is out of the mummy the mummy can’t shit in the baby.
PETER The mummy’s shit goes on the ground.
MARY And the baby’s shit goes on the ground.
PAUL Is the ground covered in shit?
MARY That’s what the ground is.
PETER The ground is all the shit that has come out.
MARY People wear shoes because of that. Because the shit can go up through your feet.
PETER The ground is a big shit. Done by all the people ever.
PAUL Before people was the earth a big shit?
PETER Yes. It was a very big shit in space. In the stars.
MARY And people came along and did their shit on it.
PETER Then the daddy comes along.
MARY He says “Put your shoes on! Can’t you see the shit?”
PAUL And of course they do. They put them on.
MARY And the daddy says “We better have some money.” And out he goes to get some.
PAUL Like this.
HE WALKS ACROSS THE SPACE IN AN ORDINARY WAY.
PETER Or like this.
HE WALKS ACROSS THE SPACE IN AN ORDINARY WAY.
MARY The daddies meet each other.
PETER (TO PAUL) Are you getting some money?
PAUL We need it to get food and clothes for my wife and the little baby.
PETER I do too.
PAUL Do you have a boss?
PETER I certainly do.
PAUL I have one.
PETER My boss pays me for doing things.
PAUL Yes.
PETER Yes.
MARY What’s his name?
PAUL Mister Something.
PETER Something like that.
MARY The women meet each other.
PAUL I’d like to do that.
PETER I’m in touch with my feminine side.
PAUL So. Is there a lot of shit that you have to get rid of?
MARY It’s everywhere. From out of the baby, of course.
PAUL Doesn’t it half stink?
MARY It’s fucking smelly.
PETER We’ll be getting some money soon.
MARY It gets rid of shit well.
PETER We keep it in a box.
MARY The shit?
PETER The money.
MARY People might take it.
PETER Well, yes.
PAUL I wish they’d take the shit.
PETER There are pipes.
MARY Are they long?
PETER Long enough. Right away from you and the baby and the house.
MARY Then the daddies come back.
PETER (TO MARY) Hello dear.
HE KISSES HER.
MARY Hello.
PETER Has the baby put out a lot of shit?
MARY Yes, darling.
PETER I’ve got some money for the box.
MARY That will help black out the shit.
PETER We must be careful not to get shit in the money box.
PAUL (TO MARY) Hello darling.
HE KISSES HER.
MARY Hello dear.
PAUL Today I got some good money.
MARY Things will be easier.
PAUL We will know where to put everything.
MARY Certainly. Another daddy comes home from getting money.
PETER (TO MARY) I’m back from out getting money.
MARY I’ve been generally putting the shit in the right place.
PETER That baby!
THEY LAUGH.
MARY Some of the women don’t have any man.
(SHE LOOKS UPSET)
Humph.
PETER MOVES TOWARDS MARY (ENACTING ANOTHER MAN)
PETER Hello pet.
MARY No.
PETER I’ve been working and I expect you’ve been putting the shit and the money in different places.
MARY No.
PETER Has the baby done so much shit that the money is obscured by it?
MARY No.
PAUL (ENACTING ANOTHER MAN. ADDRESSING MARY) Hello baa lamb.
MARY How many wives have you got? There’s only one each.
PAUL I’m coming home and then I’m coming home and I’ve been working and I’ve been working.
MARY I don’t like that. You can’t have two lives one either side of the street.
PAUL I am a boss and I’m looking for a lovely partner.
MARY Ugh.
PETER She doesn’t want it.
PAUL But I am a boss.
PETER Do you have some papers or certificates?
PAUL GOES TO THE CHEST OF DRAWERS AND OPENS A DRAWER. IT IS FULL TO THE BRIM WITH BLOOD. HE PULLS OUT A SHEAF OF PAPERS.
PAUL Some of these are papers and some are certificates.
MARY May I study them, please?
PAUL HANDS THE PAPERS TO MARY
They say that you are in fact the man who went off to war from the village years ago and then they found out that there wasn’t a war on. But that was many years ago and now you are back and we wonder who you are. And look – this certificate seems to suggest that you left behind you loved ones and blood relations.
PETER LEAPS UP
PETER Let me see those!
(HE TAKES THE PAPERS AND CERTIFICATES FROM HER)
Mary! is your name name Dark?
MARY Yes. I am Mary Dark.
PAUL No, Peter!
(PAUL TRIES TO SEIZE THE PAPERS AND CERTIFICATES. THE MEN STRUGGLE (MESSILY, NECESSARILY). PAUL MANAGES TO WREST THEM FROM PETER.)
These are false certificates! Some of the stamps and seals are clearly made from crude cork or potato plunged in poster paint.
MARY Nonsense!
(SHE TRIES TO SEIZE THE PAPERS AND CERTIFICATES FROM PAUL. THEY STRUGGLE. SHE SUCCEEDS.
SHE STUDIES THE PAPERS AND CERTIFICATES, THEN SCREAMS IN HORROR.)
Aaagh!
PETER What is it, Mary?
MARY It’s Paul! He’s…he’s…
PETER What? What?
MARY He is John Dark!
PETER Who’s that then?
PAUL You little fool!
MARY John Dark is my father!
PETER Did you fuck him?
MARY I fucking hope not!
PAUL RUSHES TO THE BLOOD-FILLED DRAWER. HE WITHDRAWS ANOTHER BUNCH OF PAPERS.
PAUL Look! These are affidavits and testimonies!
PETER They had better be substantial!
PAUL Fuck off, Peter! What do you know?
MARY Paul, you must tell me! are you John?
PAUL These affidavits will settle the matter! Of course I am not John! John was brutally murdered after brutally murdering his very own wife! Look – here is the murder certificate and affidavit.
HE THRUSTS AN AFFIDAVIT AT HER. SHE TAKES IT AND STUDIES IT.
MARY Paul! this appears to suggest that you are not John but his son by the woman with whom he took up after repellently taking the life of my mother.
PETER Isabel.
MARY Yes, my mother was Isabel.
PETER Thus, Mary, Paul as we have come to know him is none other than…
MARY My half-brother!
PETER Did you fuck him?
MARY Have you seen him?
PETER He’s right beside you.
MARY Would you fuck that?
PETER I am not that way, Mary, as you know.
PAUL Have you been banging my sister, Peter?
MARY Half-sister.
PETER Maybe I have maybe I haven’t.
MARY Make your mind up.
PAUL Look, Peter, okay, so the war didn’t exist that I went off to. But who knew? I went in good faith. I really thought there was one. It fucking felt like it.
PETER Sounds to me as if you routinely confuse the inner with the outer, Paul. Nothing personal. You div.
PAUL Are you saying I’m several stamps short of a collection?
PETER It may be that you are a number of biscuits short of a proper asssortment.
PAUL MOVES TOWARDS THE BLOOD-FILLED DRAWER.
PAUL I have testimonials here that indicate I’m as sane as they come.
PETER INTERCEPTS HIM.
PETER Not so fast!
(PETER GOES TO THE DRAWER AND PULLS IT ALL THE WAY OUT. SEVERAL GALLONS OF BLOOD HIT THE DECK.)
What do you call this?
(PETER INVERTS THE DRAWER TO SHOW THAT IT IS EMPTY THEN RUNS HIS HANDS THROUGH THE GORE ON THE FLOOR, SEARCHING FOR ANYTHING THAT MIGHT HAVE FALLEN OUT.)
Not a testimonial to be seen! How sane do you feel now, Bobby?
PAUL Peter, there’s something you should know.
PETER What is it, Mister Bonkers?
PAUL When my father conspired to kill Mary’s mother Isabel in order that he might share a pillow with Patricia…
PETER Your mother.
PAUL Yes, Patricia was my mother. My father was only able to do this because of the support he received from Mary’s uncle.
MARY Colin.
PETER Your uncle was Colin. But…
PAUL Yes, Peter! Mary’s murdered mother’s brother helped my father who was also her father to murder his sister who was also our father’s wife and the mother of Mary.
PETER But…
MARY Hang on, Paul. Colin was Patricia’s brother. My mother didn’t have a brother.
PAUL Yeah, right, exactly. Colin. Colin helped my father kill your mother so that my father could bang his sister. That’s it.
PETER Colin was my father.
MARY What does that make you?
PETER His son.
MARY No. What else?
PETER Something to do with Paul?
MARY Yeah.
PETER I’m his uncle?
MARY For fuck’s sake.
PETER We’re cousins.
MARY Right. Get it right.
PETER Can I fuck you?
MARY Now?
PETER In theory.
PAUL She’s your cousin, you bumpkin.
PETER We’re all cousins.
MARY You’re such a fucking cock, Peter! Me and Paul are half-sisters and brothers. Why don’t you listen?
PETER Why should I have to listen? You should just be able to know, shouldn’t you?
PAUL How would you know? You haven’t got X-ray eyes.
PETER They wouldn’t help.
PAUL So how do you tell?
PETER How do I fucking know? I asked first.
MARY (TO PETER) Anyway, you fucked me.
PAUL You fucked this cunt?
MARY I’ll fuck who I fucking want. Fuck off.
PAUL That can’t be right. What if you had a baby? Where would it come out?
PETER The arse. That’s what happens when you fuck family.
MARY Does it hurt?
PETER It makes your eyes water.
MARY What about the baby?
PAUL The baby would be wise and sad.
PETER It would be empty. Everything would strike it but it would be solid all the way through – no organs. Just like wood. Or wax.
PAUL It could be beautiful. Looking at the world. Trying to be itself. Not having anything inside.
MARY The baby would touch you and you would want world peace. It would smile and your nerves would all go off at once.
PETER It would shine in the world.
PAUL Things would happen to it, it would move along. But it wouldn’t have a ghost, it wouldn’t be haunted.
MARY Her little hands out. All going on. Nothing hurting. Not belonging. In the centre.
THE CARETAKERS LEAD THE ACTORS TO THE WASHING AREA. THEY THROW BUCKETS OF WARM WATER OVER THEM AND THE YOUNG MEN WASH THEM.
NEARBY, THE INTERPRETERS DANCE UNDER A SPOTLIGHT, SLOWLY WITH SLIGHT SMILES.
THE ACTORS ARE WRAPPED IN DRESSING GOWNS. THEY WALK OUT, ESCORTED BY THE CARETAKERS.
THE YOUNG MEN GO TO DANCE WITH THE INTERPRETERS.
THE SPOTLIGHT SLOWLY FADES TO BLACK.

2006

(find the playlet script here)

I had done the Wimbledon gig for three years and was pleased, towards the end of 2005, to be asked to do it yet again. This time Michael Pavelka, the programme leader, had decided not to do the usual Shakespeare but opt for Webster’s ‘The White Devil’ (1612), for a little light relief. I read the play with the usual reluctance. Notable for its body count and delirious bloodletting, the play as text still remained, as far as I was concerned, intractable. It would have to be severely adapted. By this time I was entirely comfortable with my inability to like any plays more than a few years old. I had, after all, scarcely thought about the matter throughout my life as a writer and it had only ever seemed to be an issue when the Wimbledon gigs came round. I’d felt that the students expected something recognisably Shakespearean and it would be wrong to withhold it because of my churlish fundamentalism with regard to the olden. It continued, however, to be the case that Michael was not perturbed by my disability as long as the students were kept busy and had their design skills constructively tested, so I cut loose.

For one of the two short Webster pieces I was required to direct, I thought “Let’s just go with the blood part.” The designers should endeavour to make concealed devices that would release, in a controlled manner, copious amounts of stage blood throughout the show. I wanted a bloodbath at the end of which the walls and floor would be awash and the actors would be soaked. I spoke at length with the designers about gore and how we might use it in an excessive yet poetic manner. I put it to them that the set, its furniture and the actors’ costumes should all bleed. The set would bleed from its every orifice: walls would run with blood, sofas would leak it, lamps would ooze it, drawers would be brim full of it. The characters would conduct conversations as blood ran from beneath their hair lines, from their sleeves and trouser legs and dresses. It would pump from their chests. They would put six blood capsules in their mouths and blood would foam uncontrollably from their gaping gobs.

The space would be as much a sculptural installation as drama site. The actors would not acknowledge the blood. Their conversation would contain unspoken tensions that were expressed by the blood. It would be startling, beautiful and grotesque.

One of the actors, Chris Newland, found a website dedicated to the manufacture of stage blood. A number of recipes were displayed, each offering different consistencies and shades. The blood that would run down the walls had to be thick enough to trickle rather than gush while the stuff seeping through the garments would need to be thin so that it spread fast. The top drawer of the chest of drawers was to be filled to the brim and, when the entire drawer was removed in the course of the scene, the contents must splash like water, creating an effect similar to that obtained by dropping a cow onto a carpark from a helicopter.

The most technically demanding effect involved bleeding the walls. The designers rigged up lengths of concealed plastic drain pipe along the top of each wall of the box set. The pipes had holes drilled in them at intervals like mighty piccolos. Each pipe was then filled with 25 litres of blood. The holes, of course, were kept uppermost and the pipes were rotated in order to release the gore. The effect could not be rehearsed. The blood would stain the walls and we had no budget to re-cover them. Small prototypes were tested on the back lot but the difference in scale between the set and the test was unnerving. We would have to go into performance with a major design function untried.

On the day in question not only did the blood run free but it formed undulating vertical rivulets on the pristine white walls and made a completely unpredictable regular splattering noise as it flowed onto the floor. The drawer of blood was satisfyingly splashy but the costumes did not ooze quite as woundedly as we had hoped. This was an academic misgiving, however, for the actors ended up strikingly stained and the set was pleasingly pooled.

2005

Once a year, since 2002, I have been asked to participate in what is called the Renaissance Project in the Theatre School at Wimbledon College of Art. Student theatre designers are given the opportunity to work for a few weeks with professional directors and actors. These latter produce a short play for which the students design sets, costumes and lighting. Michael Pavelka, the Course Leader of the Design for Performance course, generally chooses a Shakespeare play for the project and the students, supervised by Michael and his colleague Peter Farley, study the text and its themes closely. The students then suggest scenes or elements from the plays that they would like to develop and we would discuss how this might be realised.

I have certain misgivings about Shakespeare to which I refer in the intros to some of the Delicious Playlets. They are mostly to do with not being at all interested in the work. I was pleased to be asked to do the project, however, and initially sought to conceal my misgivings from Michael. After the first meeting with my allotted student designers I realised that my attitude to Shakespeare had not changed since English Literature ‘O’ Level (1960) and was not about to undergo a maturing transformation. I decided that I would, instead, write a performance text of the appropriate length, derived from scenes and themes in the target play. That way I wouldn’t have to pretend to enjoy working with the impenetrable language and tiresome plotlines. Michael didn’t seem to mind this – his main concern was that his students were creatively challenged and kept busy. I realised I had been blessed with an enlightened boss and set about writing some scripts, one for each of the two groups of designers whom I was supervising.

Each time I worked on the project I felt more emboldened to increase the distance between the Shakespeare set text and my own so-called ‘adaptations’. Eventually I was writing scripts that referred in some abstract and elusive way to mere moments in the original or else took elements of the original and subjected them to forceful formal destruction (I believe the polite term is deconstruction). I realised I had, indirectly, been given a licence to experiment with extreme propositions that might subsequently be applied to my public work. As a result I have been pleased to discover all sorts of options, some of which have fed directly into my full-length plays.

Such were the exigencies of the college schedules that rehearsals for each playlet totalled no more than about eight hours, spread over two or three days. Nevertheless, the student designers are well served by experienced specialist technicians in properly equipped workshops and the theatre space is quite large. The teams have about two weeks in which to discuss, draw, make scale models, make ground plans, build and install their sets. I tried to write the texts as quickly as possible so that the designers could work with them for as long as possible. Each play took about two days to write. It proved possible to mount thoroughly respectable short productions within these constraints, not least because the actors were able to work unreasonably fast without succumbing to anxiety.

I’m returning to this post in 2014, having trawled through various hard disks and memory sticks in an attempt to collect all The Delicious Playlets together and publish them as a bunch in Strength Weekly. The blog already houses scripts based on King Lear (2002), The Tempest (2003), Romeo & Juliet (2004), Webster’s The White Devil (2005), Hamlet (2006-7) and Twelfth Night (2007-8). (The full run of 14 playlet scripts can now be found in the Theatre section of Strength Weekly (2019). Click on ‘THEATRE’ at the top of the screen)

In 2002 I was asked if I would like to direct an excerpt from a Shakespeare play for some theatre design students at Wimbledon School of Art. I have no interest in Shakespeare and know little of his work. I read three of his plays for ‘O’ level in 1960 then another three for university three years later then forty years passed and I didn’t think about him apart from feeling annoyed whenever I thought about him. The prospect of directing an excerpt filled me with horror. I find the language impenetrable and the way in which it is generally performed ridiculous. I decided to write my own version of a scene from Lear, chosen by the students.

Bernadette Russell played Regan. In rehearsal – we had eight hours for rehearsal – I asked her to improvise in a highly exaggerated manner Regan’s response to Lear’s request for a loving tribute. Bernadette has the capacity to produce, with the force of one speaking in tongues, an extraordinarily vivid stream of images arranged around a given theme or objective. On this occasion she launched into a lurid and demented rapid-fire monologue that outlined the privations to which she was prepared to submit for her foolish father. I took notes eagerly and used nearly all of her material to shape Regan’s long speeches.

The final speech, in which Regan describes herself eating her way into the body of the King of France, felt like a natural extension of the abandon that Bernadette had established in the first speech and represents something I’d always wanted to try to write about.

It can be argued that a strong, readily visualisable narrative is out of place in theatre dialogue. The argument, one that I have frequently made myself, would be that theatre is a visual medium, not a branch of radio. In the latter medium it is permissible and necessary to describe that which cannot be seen but when performance spaces, rather than imagined spaces, frame performance then enactment rather than anecdote must prevail. However, notwithstanding the bacchanalian ritualism of the Viennese Aktionists, who routinely writhed in the warm intestines of freshly slaughtered cattle in their pursuit of the modern Dionysian, it would have been, in this instance, of questionable value to literalise, by means of ingenious theatrical design, something that could only be technically impressive and would, more importantly, simply break the flow of a scene. Regan’s cartoonish excursion into meat puppetry is, after all, only something she would attempt if anyone were to doubt her dedication to her Dad.

I also asked Chloe Billington, playing Cordelia, to improvise the reasons why she quite liked her father. We had decided that Cordelia, while being unreasonably pressured by Lear, was also experiencing adolescent ennui to a degree that warranted her quoting directly from Liam Lynch’s excellently nerdy song ‘United States of Whatever’, whose first stanza runs thus:

I went down to the beach and saw Kiki

She was, like, all “ehhhh”

And I was, like, “Whatever!”

chorus:

Cuz this is my
United States of Whatever!
And this is my
United States of Whatever!
And this is my
United States of Whatever!

Chloe’s response to the exercise entirely informs her speech to Lear.

a playlet written for theatre design students at Wimbledon College of Art (2003)

(see an introduction to this playlet here)

FOOL A guy goes into a bar and says: There were these three women: So this very old man likes a drink: They say he’s partial: They say he’s very partial: Did you hear that?: Now I won’t mix two animals: Okay – there’s a bloke: What’s the difference between them?: There was this woman: One likes broccoli: What about the other?: Eh?: Take my wife: A bitter and a packet of Smarties please. The thing is. I mean really. It was only a cardigan: Both legs: You’ve won a car!: Lovely looking women, all of them: Shit happens: I mean: it fell out of the sky: I’m afraid he’s dead at this moment in time: Where’s my acres? Where’s my acres? I’m not getting any younger: I’m not getting any: Who is? Look at the size of that!: A pop musician and two dogs! Half for you, half for you and half for you: Who’s the little feller? But this time – no more Mister Nice Guy! Give us a kiss! Every time I fuck your mother she gives me a biscuit! Lovely looking women – three of them – blonde, brunette and a redhead: How do you tell? Look me in the eye! I won’t rub two animals together!: I should coco! I’m partial to a bit of toast: This is where it gets difficult: You have to make your mind up: Lovely looking women: it’s only skin deep though, we all know that: Shit happens: You’re ahead of me: A very long bar; very, very long: Don’t you talk at home?: What a day I’ve had: And it’s not getting any better: It’ll get worse before it gets better: I can feel it in my water: Fuck off!
LEAR You crack me up, you really do. You split my sides. You’re my port in a storm. Not just any port. Not any storm. I can feel it coming. HE TURNS TO THE TWO WOMEN. And you, you are my Virginia. You are my Georgia. You are my…
HE LISTS, IN THIS MANNER, THE FIFTYTWO STATES OF THE USA. THESE ARE NOT MEMORISED SO HE MAY HESITATE AND PAUSE. THIS IS FINE.
CORDELIA I went down to the beach.
LEAR Who was there?
CORDELIA I saw Kiki. She was like nerr and I’m like…whatever.
LEAR But why?
CORDELIA She doesn’t like me. These are my united states of whatever. These are my united states of whatever. I decided to look for a job that would be useful to society but…whatever. These are my united states of whatever. These are my united states of whatever. I was in the street I saw people massing and I’m like…whatever. I was on the hill the birds fed me and I’m like…whatever. These are my united states of whatever. These are my united states of whatever. I was in the clouds I heard a voice I saw light I saw men with wings and I’m like…whatever. I’m in the trees and my hand is in the car everything is red I’m blonde and and I’m like…whatever. These are my united states of whatever. These are my united states of whatever. People are everywhere it’s going to happen no one is listening what can you do people don’t like it and I’m like…whatever. I’m like…whatever. And these are my united states of whatever.
LEAR I feel old. I thought I might roll the bottoms of my trousers.
FOOL You’re a lovely looking man.
LEAR You’re very kind. I feel like giving up. Handing it all over to the younger crowd. I’ve had my fun. Let others have a go. That’s what I thought.
FOOL The chair collapses. The fat woman – not my wife – falls downwards. This is where it gets difficult. Are you sure?
LEAR It’s what I want. I want to know who loves me, how much and what their name is.
FOOL I love you.
LEAR But you’re a Fool.
FOOL They can be very nice people.
LEAR I want to know what the women think.
FOOL Ah, the ladies! What are they like? What are they like?
CORDELIA I’m like…
LEAR No! Oldest go first. Regan – have you your eye on my acres?
REGAN (ADMONISHING HIM) Dad!
LEAR So how much do you love me?
REGAN Well. A great deal. You know, a very great deal. A big lot, basically. I’d shave myself for you. In the street. I’d go down alleys with sailors for you. I’d eat cat food. From the tin. I’d let pigs suckle me. I’d walk round town with a pig on each tit. I’d slap myself silly, till blood came. And dog food. I’d smear it on my arse. I wouldn’t care. Loads of dogs would crowd round and eat my pants off and I’d be shouting ‘I really love my Dad, that’s why!’ They’d eat my pants off and lick my arse, they’d have their tongues up my arse, all sorts of dogs, and they’d give me such a fucking shagging I’d get the hiccups!
LEAR Regan, that’s breathtaking.
REGAN I’ll shave my snatch for you. I won’t even shave it, I’ll rip the hair out with my hands. I wouldn’t care! I wouldn’t give a shit! I’d get some paint, right, and paint a big knob on my snatch, with paint, right, and I’d paint the word KNOB on my tits. People come up to me, common people, common as muck, they’d say to me ‘We want to fucking muck about with you, we want to see your knob and generally feel you up’ I’d say ‘Fucking come on then! Form a queue and get stuck in!’ I wouldn’t give a shit. Piss, right, you want me to gargle with piss – just say it! Bob’s your uncle! It’s done – gallons of piss! There you are! Or dog’s piss. Straight out of the dog! It’s nothing to me – fucking nothing. Here boy – in my mouth. Good boy! Fuck it.
LEAR You’ve made a old man very happy, Regan. You can have all the parks.
REGAN Okay – the Donkey Sanctuary, right. On the Isle of Wight. I’d go there, in the nude, and I’m a vegetarian, right, to where the Hovercraft leaves, at Gosport, quite a rough area, the people round there they’d fuck your cat for a cup of tea, they shit in their trousers to save on shoe leather, not a nice area at all really, I’m there right, a vegetarian spring roll stuck up my arse for protection and I wouldn’t actually take the ferry, I’d jump off the jetty and swim over, and I wouldn’t wear shoes deliberately and I’d have a big bucket of double ended nails that I’d throw before me on the pavement and there’d be my donkey, he’s called Clive, waiting for me, he bloody loves me he does, I call him my Hee Haw, I’d run at him right and pop his eyes out with a two thumb running jab and jump pop pop they’re out and I’d eat them right and he’s thinking ‘What the fuck’s with her today?’ and I’m a fucking vegetarian, ‘Here’s a spring roll for you that I brought you’ and he’s thinking ‘Oh it’s not all bad then’ and then I strangle him, they’ve got big necks but if you shout while you’re doing it that helps, you know ‘AAAAAARRRGH’ like that, it makes it easier, and then I’d dig into his body, with my bare hands, force my bare hands into his side and pull his intestine out so hard his arsehole disappears, suddenly it’s there suddenly it isn’t sort of thing then I’d blow down it, the intestine you can pronounce it intesteen if you want except that’s wrong I’d blow down it really hard so hard it’d straighten out – they’re about fifty yards long and full of shit – and it would all fly out and land in Portsmouth where my Lord Portsmouth lives, like a flying missile but of shit right. And I’d say to them ‘Oh by the way that’s because my Dad is such a very fucking likeable person if you want to know.’
LEAR Regan, you’ve touched in me the parts that are generally shuttered to the world. You can have, as well as all the parks, the verdant valleys.
REGAN Brilliant. I love valleys.
FOOL Lovely looking woman. Redhead. What’s natural, eh? A bloke says to a woman ‘Do you like fooling around?’ She says…
REGAN In your dreams. Fuck off.
FOOL Fools have hidden wisdom.
REGAN Such is the strained and keening dream of those to whose own puffery they do subscribe. These notions born of ancient flummery do fraud us still.
FOOL That’s a no then.
LEAR Daughter, your sacrifice excites me. The cake is carved, the pie is cast, now who’s going to love me last? (TURNING TO CORDELIA) Say some things.
CORDELIA Follow regal Regan in this roiling role? My lord, such oratory topples my resolve and terves my tongue averse.
FOOL Force yourself.
CORDELIA I love you because…I love you because you’re there. I love you because I recognise you. I love you because you don’t surprise me. I love you because you never change. I love you because you gave me lots of things that I wanted. A horse. A sword. A bodice. I love you because you tell me off. I love you because Mum died and I had to. I love you because you don’t walk fast. I love you because when a person is around every day and they don’t hit you you tend to. I love you because I’m your daughter. I love you because you’re my father.
LEAR That’s it?
CORDELIA Yes.
LEAR You love me because I’m your father.
CORDELIA Yes.
LEAR You don’t want another go?
CORDELIA No, thank you.
LEAR I’m starting to feel odd.
FOOL (TO CORDELIA) You wouldn’t consider shaving yourself?
CORDELIA No. It’s not necessary.
LEAR I’m starting to become irate. I’m at that point.
REGAN Dad!
LEAR What?
REGAN I’d ring up the King of France.
LEAR Yes.
REGAN I’d ring him up and I’d say ‘My dad says you’re a fucking cunt.’ And he’d say ‘You fucking what?’, you know: ‘Vous fucking quoi?’ like they say. And I’d say ‘Right, right, do you want some then?’ and he’d say ‘Do I fuck!’ and I’d say ‘Right! Jerkin off!’ and I’d tear his jerkin off and his cape etcetera and I’d run at him so fast with my teeth out I’d fucking bore right into his chest, my head would be in his chest up to the neck and I’d say to my dog, he fucking loves me my dog, I’d say ‘Goo on buh, goo on!’ and my dog would go straight for his arse, no dog food required he’d just do it because he’s fucking trained right, and I’d be in his chest and I’d pull myself in past the shoulders so I’m half inside and I’d grab his lungs and throw them outside on the ground and that’d give me the extra room and I’d get one leg in then the other and I’m right inside him and I’d start eating him, right, from the inside, eat all his stomach and diaphragm and swallow them down to my stomach and it’s dark but I don’t fucking care because of my Dad, nobody calls my Dad a fucking cunt, Christ that makes me irritated, so I eat out his throat and suck his tongue down into my mouth and then I can force my head up through his neck into his head but his fucking eyes are in the way so I fucking suck them in and swallow them, no one can tell right, it just looks like he’s blinked and when he opens his eyes they’re my eyes probably a different colour but they don’t notice and I force my arms down his arms and wave them about yeah ‘WHAAAY’ like that then I realise my legs are still bent up under me and there’s a load of intesteens in the way and that gets me fucking mad I go fucking divvy and I start kicking ‘UGH UGH UGH’ and pushing and I push his duodenum and all his various tubes down then I remember my dog’s still boring into his arse right so I say ‘Come on buh, less goo, less goo’ and my dog is chewing his way towards me and that’s just so great they’re a lot more fucking reliable than people I have to say that so I fucking squeeze and suddenly the whole lot bursts out of his arse SLUSH, the King of France’s arse the cunt SLUSH, straight down my dog’s throat which he finds very pleasing and my legs shoot down and they’re inside the King of France’s legs and I start running about ‘OLLY OLLY OLLY’ fucking waving my arms and shouting ‘I’m the King of France who’s a cunt’ like ‘Je suis le roi de la France who’s a cunt’ and I’m looking out of his eyes his eye holes with my eyes and they’re all saying ‘Bonjour your Majesty how are you you are my fucking king I fucking love you’ and I grab his sword right and get hold of his knob under his tights like they wear and whip it out and chop it off the whole cluster then distribute it to the fucking French saying ‘OY OY OY eat some of my sliced knob and nuts if you want if that makes you feel better’ and they’re on their knees gobbling it up, they can’t get enough and then I’ve got my sword right, it’s mine now because I AM THE KING OF FRANCE right and the sight of it makes me go FUCKING BOARY because NOBODY TOUCHES MY DAD, NOBODY! I LOVE MY DAD AND I WOULD NEVER EAT HIM! I WOULD NEVER ENTER MY DAD’S BODY AND KICK OUT HIS GUTS TO MAKE MORE ROOM! MY DAD IS ACE! HE IS THE SUN IN MY EYES, I’VE GOT NO EYELIDS I’VE GOT NO SKIN HE LOOKS AT ME AND I BURN ACROSS MY BODY, MY ARMS WILL FLY ABOUT MY HAIR IS FLAMING HE FLAYS ME I WILL ENTER BODIES FOR HIM I WILL CUT THE FUCKING HEADS OFF THOSE COCKEATING CUNTS I WILL UP AND INTO THEIR FLESH AND DASH ABOUT OLLY OLLY OLLY I WILL FUCKING CUT THEM FOR HIM OLLY ALL THE FRENCH OLLY LET’S FUCKING DO IT COME ON LETS DO IT UGH UGH UGH.
PAUSE
CORDELIA (SOFTLY) Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!
Your cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’the world,
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!
LEAR I have a hundred men about me
One will buckle my shoe
Two will knock at my door
Three will pick up my sticks
Four will lay them straight
Five will bring me a hen
Six will dig for me and delve for me
Seven will play knick knack
Eight will play knick knack on my gate
Nine will play for me in heaven
In my den ten will eat for me
A hundred nights about me
Dark eleven
Black twelve
Sleepless thirteen
Fourteen will sleep for me
Fifteen will wash my feet with his hair
Sixteen will wash my hair
Seventeen will oil my skin
Eighteen will gaze for me
Nineteen will tell me
Twenty will move me
I have one hundred men in me
Twentyone will age for me for I am the father
Twentytwo will bind the light for me for I am the sun
Twentythree is in me he is in me
Twentythree is in me I can feel his fingers like mist
A spectre he is the spectre in me
He will play for me in heaven
I have a hundred nights in me
They speak with my voice
They have entered me
They cut the cake for me
Finish

2003