by Tom Stoppard
MACBETH: That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root? Yet my heart
Throbs to know one thing:
WITCHES: (Off-stage) Seek to know no more.
Show his eyes and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart.
MACBETH: Where are they? Gone! Let this pernicious hour
Stand aye accursed in the calendar.
Come in, without there.
(Enter LENNOX.)
LENNOX: What is your grace’s will.
MACBETH: Saw you the weird sisters?
LENNOX: No my lord.
(EASY passes window.)
MACBETH: Who was’t come by?
LENNOX: ’Tis two or three my lord, that bring you word that
Macduff’s fled to England.
MACBETH: Fled to England?
(EASY enters timidly.)
EASY: Useless … useless … Buxtons cake hops … artichoke almost Leamington Spa … [*Afternoon … afternoon … Buxtons blocks and that … lorry from Leamington Spa.]
‘MACBETH’: What?
(General light. OTHERS, but not MALCOLM or MACDUFF, approach out of curiosity. ‘MACBETH’ says to HOSTESS.)
Who the hell is this man?
HOSTESS: (To EASY.) Who are you?
(EASY has his clipboard which he offers.)
EASY: Buxton cake hops.
HOSTESS: Don’t sign anything.
EASY: Blankets up middling if season stuck, after plug-holes kettle-drummed lightly A412 mildly Rickmansworth—clipped awful this water ice, zig-zaggled—splash quarterly trainers as Micky Mouse snuffle—cup—evidently knick-knacks quarantine only if bacteriologic waistcoats crumble pipe—sniffle then postbox but shazam!!!! Even platforms—dandy avuncular Donald Duck never-the-less minty magazines! [*Translation—see page 20]
(Pause)
‘MACBETH’: Eh?
(EASY produces a phrase book and starts thumbing through it.)
EASY: (Triumphantly) Ah!
(He passes the HOSTESS his phrase book, indicating what she should read. She examines the page.)
HOSTESS: He says his postillion has been struck by lightning.
EASY: Hat rack timble cuckoo pig exit dunce!
‘MACBETH’: What?
EASY: Dunce!
‘MACBETH’: What?
EASY: Cuckoo pig exit what.
(Nodding agreeably.) Cake hops properly Buxtons.
(The HOSTESS flips through the book.)
HOSTESS: Cake hops.
EASY: Cake hops.
HOSTESS: Timber or wood.
EASY: Timber or wood—properly Buxtons.
HOSTESS: I’m so sorry about this …
EASY: Right. Timber or wood—properly Buxtons. I’m so sorry about this.
(He opens shutters to reveal his lorry.)
Ankle so artichoke—almost Leamington Spa.
LENNOX: Oh. He’s got a lorry out there.
HOSTESS: Lorry load of wood or timber.
EASY: I’m so sorry about this.
HOSTESS: Don’t apologize.
EASY: Don’t apologize.
LENNOX: Oh, you do speak the language!
EASY: Oh, you do speak the language.
‘MACBETH’: No—we speak the language!
EASY: We speak the language.
LENNOX: Cretin is he?
EASY: Pan-stick-trog.
(Everybody leaves.
Enter MALCOLM AND MACDUFF.)
MALCOLM: Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
Weep our sad bosoms empty.
MACDUFF: Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword; and like good men
Bestride our down-fallen birthdom. Each new morn
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland, and yelled out
Like syllable of dolour.
MALCOLM: This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest.
MACDUFF: Bleed, bleed, poor country!
(Police siren is heard in distance.)
MALCOLM: It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds.
MACDUFF: O Scotland, Scotland! O nation miserable,
With an untitled tyrant, bloody-sceptred,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again.
See who comes here.
(Siren stops.)
MALCOLM: My countryman; but yet I know him not.
(The police car has been wailing on its way back. INSPECTOR enters.)
MACDUFF: Stands Scotland where it did?
INSPECTOR: Och aye, it’s a braw bricht moonlicht nicked, and so are you, you haggis-headed dumbwits, hoots mon ye must think I was born yesterday. (He drops the accent: to the audience)—Stay where you are and nobody use the lavatory…
(CAHOOT enters.)
Cahoots mon! Where’s McLandovsky got himself?
(EASY enters. HOSTESS follows.)
EASY: Useless, git … [*Afternoon, sir …]
INSPECTOR: Who are you, pig-face?
(INSPECTOR grabs him. EASY yelps and looks at his watch.)
EASY: Poxy queen! [*Twenty past ouch.]
Marzipan clocks! [*Watch it!]
INSPECTOR: What?
HOSTESS: He doesn’t understand you.
INSPECTOR: What’s that language he’s talking?
HOSTESS: At the moment we’re not sure if it’s a language or a clinical condition.
EASY: (Aggrieved) Quinces carparks! (Offering the clipboard.)
Cake-hops—Buxton’s almost Leamington Spa.
HOSTESS: He’s delivering wood and wants someone to sign for it.
EASY: … wood and wants someone to sign for it.
INSPECTOR: Wood?
HOSTESS: He’s got a two-ton artichoke out there.
INSPECTOR: What???
HOSTESS: I mean a lorry.
(CAHOOT taps EASY on shoulder.)
CAHOOT: Useless … [*Afternoon …]
EASY: (Absently) Useless … (then sees who it is.)
Cahoot! Geraniums!? [*How are you!?]
CAHOOT: Gymshoes. Geraniums? [*Fine. How are you?]
EASY: Gymshoes.
CAHOOT: Upside cakeshops? (*Have you brought the blocks?]
EASY: Slab. [*Yes.]
CAHOOT: Almost Leamington Spa? [*From Leamington Spa?]
EASY: Slab, git. Even artichoke. [*Yes, sir. I’ve got a lorry.]
CAHOOT: Cube. [*Thanks.]
(He signs clipboard.)
EASY: Cube, git. [*Thank you, sir.]
INSPECTOR: Just a minute. What the hell are you talking about?
CAHOOT: Afternoon, squire!
INSPECTOR: Afternoon. Who’s your friend?
HOSTESS: He’s the cake-hops man.
INSPECTOR: Well, why can’t he say so?
CAHOOT: He only speaks Dogg.
INSPECTOR: What?
CAHOOT: Dogg.
INSPECTOR: Dogg?
CAHOOT: Haven’t you heard of it?
INSPECTOR: Where did you learn it?
CAHOOT: You don’t learn it, you catch it.
(EASY notices ‘MALCOLM’.)
EASY: Useless. [*Afternoon.]
‘MALCOLM’: Useless … Geraniums?
EASY: Gymshoes. Geraniums?
‘MALCOLM’: Gymshoes … cube …
EASY: (To CAHOOT.) Blankets up middling if senses stuck, after plug-holes kettle-drummed lightly A412 mildly Rickmansworth.
‘MALCOLM’: Rickmansworth.
‘MACDUFF’: (To ‘MALCOLM’, heading for the door.) He needs a bit of a hand …
EASY: Slab.
‘MALCOLM’: (Leaving.) … with the cake-hops …
EASY: Clipped awful this water ice zig-zaggled.
CAHOOT: His mate got struck down by lightning.
HOSTESS: Shazam …
EASY: Slab.
CAHOOT: (Hands EASY the plans.) Albatross. [*Plans.]
(To EASY.) Easy! Brick …
EASY: Slab, git.
CAHOOT: Brick. (He positions EASY for building steps.)
EASY: Brick? [*Here?]
CAHOOT: Cake-hops. Brick.
EASY: Cube, git. [*Thanks, sir.]
CAHOOT/HOSTESS: Gymshoes. [*Excellent.]
INSPECTOR: May I remind you we’re supposed to be in a period of normalization here.
HOSTESS: Kindly leave the stage. Act Five is about to begin.
INSPECTOR: Is it! I must warn you that anything you say will be taken down and played back at your trial.
HOSTESS: Bicycles! Plank? [*Ready?]
(To INSPECTOR.) Slab. Gymshoes!
(CAHOOT and HOSTESS leave.
INSPECTOR and EASY are left.)
INSPECTOR: What gymshoes?
EASY: What, git? [*Eleven, sir?]
INSPECTOR: Gymshoes!
EASY: Slab, git.
INSPECTOR: (Giving up.) Useless …
EASY: (Enthusiastically) Useless, git! [*Afternoon, sir!]
INSPECTOR: Right—that’s it! (To ceiling.) Roger! (To the audience.) Put your hands on your heads. Put your—placay manos—per capita … nix toiletto!
(’Phone rings. EASY answers, hands it to INSPECTOR.)
EASY: Roger.
INSPECTOR: (Into ’phone.) Did you get all that? Clear as a what? Acting out of hostility to the Republic. Ten years minimum. I want every word in evidence.
(LADY MACBETH enters with lighted taper.)
LADY MACBETH: Hat, daisy puck! Hat, so fie! Sun, dock: hoops malign my cattlegrid! Smallish peacocks! Flaming scots git, flaming! Fireplace nought jammy-flits?
(’Phone rings. INSPECTOR picks it up.)
INSPECTOR: (Into ’phone: pause.) How the hell do I know? But if it’s not free expression, I don’t know what is!
(Hangs up.)
LADY MACBETH: (Dry-washing her hands.) Ash-loving pell-mell on.
Fairly buses gone Arabia nettle-rash old icicles nun. Oh oh oh …
[*Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand …]
(She exits.)
INSPECTOR: (To EASY.) She’s making it up as she goes along.
You must think I’m—
(But EASY is glowing with the light of recognition.)
EASY: … Ah … Macbeth!
(Sound of cannon. Smoke. MACBETH, armed, appears on battlement.)
MACBETH: Sack-cloth never pullovers!—wickets to flicks.
Such Birnam cakeshops carousals Dunisnane!
… Dovetails oboes Malcolm? Crossly window-framed!
[*Bring me no more reports. Let them fly all Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane.
What’s the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman?]
(’Phone rings. INSPECTOR snatches it.)
INSPECTOR: (Into ’phone.) What? No—crossly window-framed, I think … Hang about—
MACBETH: Fetlocked his trade-offs cried terrain!
Pram Birnam cakehops bolsters Dunisnane!
[*I will not be afraid of death and bane
Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane!]
(The back of the lorry opens, revealing MALCOLM and OTHERS within, unloading the blocks etc. INSPECTOR sees this—speaks into walkie-talkie.)
INSPECTOR: Get the chief. Get the chief!
(One or two—ROSS, LENNOX—are to get off the lorry to form a human chain for the blocks and slabs etc. to pass from
MACDUFF in the lorry to EASY building the steps.)
MALCOLM: (To MACDUFF who is in the lorry with him.)
Jugged cake-hops furnished soon? [*What wood is this before us?]
INSPECTOR: (Into walkie-talkie.) Wilco zebra over!
MACDUFF: Sin cake-hops Birnam, git. [*The woods of Birnam, sir.]
INSPECTOR: Green Charlie Angels 15 out.
MALCOLM: State level filberts blacken up aglow … [*Let every soldier hew him down a bough …]
INSPECTOR: Easy Dogg!
EASY: (To INSPECTOR.) Slab, git?
MALCOM: Fry lettuce denial! [*And bear it before him!]
(MACDUFF and ANOTHER leap off lorry; blocks start flowing towards EASY, who builds steps.
LADY MACBETH—Wails and crys off-stage. MESSENGER enters.)
MESSENGER: Git! Margarine distract! [*The queen, my lord is dead!]
MACBETH: Dominoes, et dominoes, et dominoes,
Popsies historical axle-grease, exacts bubbly fins crock lavender …
[*Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time …]
INSPECTOR: (Into ’phone.) Yes, chief! I think everything’s more or less under control chief …
(This is a lie. The steps are building, MACBETH is continuing his soliloquy, in Dogg: drums and cannons … and—)
MACDUFF: Docket tanks, tarantaras!
[*Make all our trumpets speak!]
(Trumpets sound.
And a MESSENGER rushes in for MACBETH.)
MESSENGER: Flummoxed git! [*Gracious lord!]
MACBETH: Docket! [*Speak!]
MESSENGER: Cenotaph pay Birnam fry prevailing cakehops voluntary!
[*As I did stand my watch upon the hill
I looked toward Birnam and anon methought
The wood began to move.]
MACBETH: Quinces icepacks! [*Liar and slave!]
(MESSENGER retreats.)
(Throughout the above, EASY is calling for, and receiving, in the right order, four planks, three slabs, five blocks and nine cubes; unwittingly using the English words.
Meanwhile, MACDUFF has confronted MACBETH.)
MACDUFF: Spiral, tricycle, spiral! [*Turn, hellhound, turn!]
MACBETH: Rafters Birnam cakehops hobble Dunsinane,
fry counterpane nit crossly window-framed, fancifully oblong! Sundry cobbles rattling up so chamberlain. Frantic, Macduff!
Fry butter ban loss underlay—November glove!
[*Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane And thou opposed, being of no woman born, Yet will I try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff; and damned be him that first cries ‘Hold enough!’]
INSPECTOR: (Interrupts.) All right! That’s it!
(The INSPECTOR mounts the now completed platform.)
INSPECTOR: Thank you. Thank you! Thank you! Scabs! Stinking slobs—crooks. You’re nicked, Jock. Punks make me puke. Kick back, I’ll break necks, smack chops, put yobs in padlocks and fix facts. Clamp down on poncy gits like a ton of bricks.
(CAHOOT applauds.)
CAHOOT: Gymshoes. Marmalade. Yob?
(General applause.)
EASY: Yobbo, git.
INSPECTOR: Boris! Maurice!
(Two POLICEMEN enter and stand to receive slabs thrown to them from the doorway.)
MACDUFF: Spiral, tricycle, spiral!
INSPECTOR: Slab!
(Grey slabs are now thrown in and caught by BORIS and MAURICE who build a wall across the proscenium opening as MACBETH and MACDUFF fight and MACBETH is slain. ’Phone rings. EASY picks it up.)
EASY: Oh, useless gettie!
(While EASY speaks into the ’phone, the INSPECTOR directs the building of the wall with the help of BORIS and MAURICE, the policemen; and MALCOLM mounts the platform, taking the crown off the dead MACBETH, and finally placing it on his own head.)
MALCOLM: Nit laughable a cretin awful pig.
EASY: Cretinous fascist pig like one o’clock. Slab?
MALCOLM: Prefer availing avaricious moorhens et factotum after.
EASY: Rozzers. Gendarmes—filth!
MALCOLM: Centre roundabout if partly lawnmowers rosebush.
EASY: Blockhead. Brick as too planks. Slab.
MALCOLM: Gracious laxative. [*Dead butcher.]
EASY: Fishes bastard. Kick his backside so help me Dogg. See if I don’t. Normalizati
on.
MALCOLM: Vivay hysterical nose poultice.
EASY: Double double toil and trouble.
MALCOLM: Alabaster ominous nifty, blanket noon
Howl cinder trellis pistols owl by Scone.
[*So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.]
(Fanfare)
EASY: (Over fanfare.) Double double. Double double toil and trouble. No. Shakespeare.
(Silence)
Well, it’s been a funny sort of week. But I should be back by Tuesday.
About the Author
Tom Stoppard’s work includes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, Jumpers, Travesties, Night and Day, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, After Magritte, Dirty Linen, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, Indian Ink, The Invention of Love, the trilogy The Coast of Utopia and Rock ’n’ Roll. His radio plays include If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank, Albert’s Bridge, Where Are They Now?, Artist Descending a Staircase, The Dog It Was That Died and In the Native State. Television work includes Professional Foul, Squaring the Circle and Parade’s End. His film credits include Empire of the Sun, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which he also directed, Shakespeare in Love, Enigma and Anna Karenina.
By the Same Author
TOM STOPPARD: PLAYS ONE
The Real Inspector Hound, After Magritte, Dirty Linen,
New-Found-Land, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth
TOM STOPPARD: PLAYS TWO
The Dissolution of Dominic Boot, ‘M’ is for Moon among
Other Things, If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank, Albert’s Bridge,
Where Are They Now?, Artist Descending a Staircase,
The Dog it Was That Died, In the Native State, On ‘Dover Beach’
TOM STOPPARD: PLAYS THREE
A Separate Peace, Teeth, Another Moon Called Earth,
Neutral Ground, Professional Foul, Squaring the Circle
TOM STOPPARD: PLAYS FOUR
Dalliance (after Schnitzler), Undiscovered Country (after Schnitzler),
Rough Crossing (after Molnár), On the Razzle (after Nestroy),
The Seagull (after Chekhov)