by Ian Doescher
This is a work of fiction. All names, places, and characters—including those based on real people, living or dead—as well as characterizations and opinions are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Ian Doescher and Jacopo della Quercia
All rights reserved. Except as authorized under U.S. copyright law, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2019936672
ISBN: 9781683691600
Ebook ISBN 9781683691617
Cover art and interior illustrations by Chloe Cushman
Cover and interior designed by Aurora Parlagreco
Production management by John J. McGurk
Quirk Books
215 Church Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
quirkbooks.com
v5.4
a
To all the people he afflicted, swindled, Misrepresented, conned, and tyrannized
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
Act I
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Act II
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Act III
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Scene 6
Act IV
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Scene 6
Act V
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
FOREWORD.
A few words before the show starts: the following is a fictionalized satire of the first two years of the Trump era, which means it’s very fake. It’s not real life, but a deliberate distortion akin to a funhouse mirror, a Snapchat filter, or alternative facts. It takes place in a fictitious world with a wooden core instead of a rocky one. It stars fictional characters—some of them not even human—whose names and personalities we made up as we went along. For example, in our story, Lord MacTrump has two unmarried sons, Donnison and Ericson, who are lovesick dolts not at all like their closest approximates. Our characters Prosperosi and Desdivanka enjoy honorific titles for military services never detailed in the play nor analogous to reality. The most advanced technology in our drama is a mirror. The United States does not exist in this play, and never did, but ghosts and monsters do. In short, if any of our characters sound smarter, stupider, similar, or dissimilar to any celebrity or public figure, alive or dead, there’s a reason: this book is a parody, and the First Amendment loves protecting parodies that know they belong squarely in the fiction section—which this book surely does.
Some of the events in this drama will be instantly familiar to you. Some might sound real but are taken out of sequence in the context of our deliberately conflated and expanded timeline. Still other moments might make you ask yourself: “Did that really happen?” The answer is probably no, but don’t take our word for it. That’s what your friends, teachers, libraries, and search engines are for. We wrote this play to provide a glimpse into how a deceased seventeenth-century English playwright might have viewed the world today if forced to live through its present craziness.
As such, please accept this as a work of fiction, a satire, and an homage to the life and writings of William Shakespeare. Enjoy the show!
—THE AUTHORS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
CHORUS, across social media
MACTRUMP, President of the United Fiefdoms
LADY MACTRUMP, his third wife
DAME DESDIVANKA, daughter to MacTrump and wife to Lord Kushrew
DONNISON and ERICSON, sons to MacTrump
LORD JARED KUSHREW, husband to Desdivanka
MCTWEET, a messenger
STEPHEN BANNOX and LADY KELLEYANNE BOLEYN, advisors
GARGAMILLER, a magician
SEAN SPICERO and LADY SARAH PUCKABEE, heralds
GRAND DUKE JEFFREY SECESSIONS, Minister of Justice
SIR RODNEY ROSENSTERN, Deputy Minister of Justice
SIR MICHAEL POMPEII, Secretary of State
SIR MICHAEL FLYNNALDO and SIR JOHN MACKEELEY, generals
PAULUS ROMANAFORT, a courtier
MICHAEL LACÖHEN, a lawyer
FOOLIANI, a fool
DOCTOR PINO ENOS, a doctor
ROGER BLACKSTONE, a hatchet man
REINCE PUBIS, a partisan
LORD MICHAEL POUND, Viceroy of the United Fiefdoms
LADY POUND, his wife
SIR ROBERT OF MACMUELLER, an investigator
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN OF ROBERTSON, Lord President of the High Court
MITCH MACTUTTLE, GRIMSBY LINDSEYLOCKS, CHARLES SOOTHER, and BERNICARUS, senators
LADY NANCY PROSPEROSI, LADY CLEOSANDRIA O’CASSIO, and SPEAKER PRYAM, parliamentarians
BANQUO O’BAMA, GEORGE THE GREATER, BILLIAM O’CLINTON, GEORGE THE LESSER, RONALD REGAN, RICHARD THE WORST, DWIGHT D. EISENPOWER, HARRY S. TRUEMAN, FRANKLIN ROSSEVELT, WILLIAM FALSTAFT, and THEODORE ROSSEVELT, former Presidents of the United Fiefdoms
LORD JOSEPH O’BIDEN, former Viceroy to O’Bama
VLAD PUTAIN, Czar of Prussia
ROBERT WORMWOOD, a journalist
LADY JUSTINE and LADY MARIANNE, progressives and roommates
JOURNALISTS, SENATORS, PARLIAMENTARIANS, SUPPORTERS, PROTESTORS, SPECTATORS, GENERALS, ADMIRALS, SOLDIERS, PILOTS, POLICE, FEDERAL WORKERS, GUARDS, JUDGES, GHOSTS, TROLLS, BOTS, SNOLLYGOSTERS, GERRYMANDERS, and OTHER MONSTERS
PROLOGUE.
Washingtown, the United Fiefdoms, in the New World.
Enter CHORUS.
CHORUS
One nation, under God, divides in twain—
Half to the right, their power on the rise,
Half to the left, in fury and disdain—
Two peoples held by aging, fragile ties.
Is this America, which once, so proud,
Above the height of lesser nations stood?
How hath there come this overwhelming cloud
To darken freedom’s light, so pure and good?
Election, like an axe assaults a stump,
Hath torn the country easily in two.
And, from the wreckage, riseth one MacTrump,
Whose government begins with much ado.
If thou hast humor, hear our history,
Which may prove comedy or tragedy.
[Exit.
SCENE 1.
The streets of Washingtown in winter.
Enter MCTWEET, writing on a scroll of parchment with a blue quill.
MCTWEET
All politics is but a theater,
And all the politicians merely actors;
They read their lines and play their fleetin
g parts
In pageants we the people judge by vote.
It hath been dubb’d a great experiment
But is, in truth, a motley entertainment—
The perfect spectacle in which some knave
May strut and fret his feathers on the stage
And single-handedly may steal the show—
E’en if those hands be orangish and small.
[McTweet sticks his quill in his cap.
Such is American democracy,
The greatest government the world has known.
At least, ’tis how these actors puff their chests,
Which I should know, for I am bound to parrot
Each peep and cheep its rabble tittle-tattles.
[McTweet reads from several scraps of paper.
One crow doth cry, “Democracy is humbug,
A shiny yarn of silken shadow that
Is puppeteer’d by spiders from dark corners,”
To which another bustard groans, “The founders
Were all bad eggs, and their fowl government
As pining, pass’d, and shagg’d as dodos damn’d.”
This buzzard pecks at young millennilarks
With sniping hashtags, not with talons sharp.
One night owl older than the dawn of time
Proclaimeth, “Politics is not for chicks,
Unless their kind be hooters, tits, or boobies.”
Still others—an asylum of cuckoos—
Dumb birdbrains who rely on faux reports,
Whitewash our windows with their fascist facts!
So sings our aviary’s jarring choir
Of tweeting doves and hawks and eagles bald.
If I thy feathers ruffle, be not peckish—
For I am but a humble messenger,
And ’tis a sin to kill a mockingbird—
Yet such is but a horse of diff’rent feather.
My song is ending now, and I must fly—
A new day dawns, the birds again are chirping,
And one enormous cock anon approacheth.
[Exit McTweet to rapid drumming.
Enter SOLDIER. Drumming continues.
SOLDIER
Make way for Lord MacTrump!
MCTWEET
[offstage:] —MacTrump!
SUPPORTERS
[offstage:] —MacTrump!
Enter more SOLDIERS, marching with drum and colors.
SOLDIERS
[chanting:] A-thump! A-thump! A-thump, here comes MacTrump!
Enter MCTWEET, also marching.
ALL
A-thump! A-thump! A-thump, here comes MacTrump!
Enter POLICE, GUARDS, JOURNALISTS, SUPPORTERS, PROTESTORS, and SPECTATORS. Marching continues. MCTWEET takes and delivers messages throughout the crowd.
SUPPORTERS
[singing:] O beautiful, for spacious skies…
PROTESTORS
[singing:] We’ll not accept his vicious lies!
SPECTATOR 1
I hear his hair was woven out of hay.
MCTWEET
Like Doris Johnston and Teresa Nay!
SPECTATOR 2
His hands look smaller than an infant boy’s.
MCTWEET
But not as small as his most fav’rite toys.
PROTESTOR 1
Nay, he was sent here by the devil’s grace!
SUPPORTER 1
Thank God for his most upright, Christian base!
JOURNALIST
If any of his speeches have offended—
PROTESTOR 2
Go thou to hell, for nothing hath been mended!
ALL
A-thump! A-thump! A-thump, here comes MacTrump!
Enter SENATORS, GENERALS, PARLIAMENTARIANS, and MACTRUMP’S MINISTERS and ADVISORS, including LADY KELLEYANNE BOLEYN, who file in and take seats above. Enter LADY JUSTINE, who is blind, led by the arm by LADY MARIANNE. The two stand and listen among the PROTESTORS. The drumming stops.
SOLDIER
All hail Lord Michael Pound, who hither comes,
Your newfound Viceroy of th’United Fiefdoms!
Enter VICEROY MICHAEL POUND and LADY POUND.
SUPPORTERS
Hail! Hail!
PROTESTORS
—Fail!
[Lord Pound and Lady Pound stand and wave.
JUSTINE
—Lesser than MacTrump, yet faker.
MARIANNE
One not so sleazy, yet far sketchier.
SOLDIER
All hail to Donnison and Ericson—
Lord men-but-children to our liege MacTrump!
Enter DONNISON and ERICSON.
SUPPORTERS
Hail!
PROTESTORS
—Pale!
MARIANNE
—This Ericson looks like a salmon,
A fishy visage with the skin to match.
JUSTINE
Mayhap it is a blessing I am blind.
SOLDIER
All hail Lady MacTrump—third wife, first lady!
SUPPORTERS
Hail!
PROTESTORS
—Wail!
MCTWEET
[to Marianne and Justine:] —Would ye see pictures of her nude?
MARIANNE
If thou wish’st we shoot not the messenger,
In turn shouldst thou respect her privacy.
JUSTINE
An I could live to see one hundred years,
Such nonsense I should never wish to see.
MCTWEET
Is that, then, thy reply?
[Marianne takes McTweet’s quill and writes on his parchment.
—“Block’d.” Thank you, ladies!
MARIANNE
Fly hence, thou feather duster. Get thee gone!
[Marianne pokes McTweet with his quill and he leaves them.
SOLDIER
All hail Dame Desdivanka, daughter to
MacTrump and noble wife unto Lord Kushrew!
Enter DAME DESDIVANKA and LORD JARED KUSHREW.
SUPPORTERS
Hail!
PROTESTORS
—Jail!
MARIANNE
—What thinkest thou of her, my friend?
JUSTINE
Methinks she is the one we must observe.
Americans, we are a fickle breed—
No other folk more passionately seek
More power, property, and reputation.
MacTrump loves her beyond a father’s love,
For she is more than daughter: she’s his prize.
Her trophy, though, remaineth to be won.
MARIANNE
Then please restrain me from quick judgment, sister.
Without thy wisdom, truly, mine is naught.
SOLDIER
All Hail Chief Justice John of Robertson,
Lord President of our esteem’d High Court!
Enter CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN OF ROBERTSON.
PROTESTORS
Fail!
SUPPORTERS
—Double fail!
JUSTINE
—What sentence wouldst thou give him?
MARIANNE
I have two minds about him, verily,
Yet both are born of woman.
JUSTINE
—Here’s a thought:
How can we be a land of liberty
If all our laws be slaves to men in robes?
SOLDIER
All rise! [All stand.] All hail your sovereign MacTrump!
First champion of the Republicons,
Lord High Commander of the military,
Defender of the hallow’d Constitution—
MCTWEET
[aside:] Defender or pretender? Time will tell!
SOLDIER
And president-elect of this, our land,
Th’United Fiefdoms of America!
Enter MACTRUMP.
Both cheers and sobs erupt from the crowd.
SUPPORTERS
Hail!
PROTESTORS
—Heil!
MACTRUMP
—My people, friends and enemies,
’Tis well that ye have hither come today.
Forsooth, this is a most tremendous crowd.
Say Kelleyanne, behold this mighty crowd.
Was e’er a crowd terrific as this crowd?
It crowds my mind to think upon this crowd.
KELLEYANNE
’Tis passing comprehension, sovereign.
Thy power is unsinkable—titanic!
MACTRUMP
[to Kelleyanne:] Indeed. The biggest crowd there ever was,
Which groweth larger ev’ry second, yea?
’Tis unbelievable by ev’ry measure.
I bid ye, take a picture of the crowd.
[To McTweet:] Take thou a picture.
MCTWEET
—Happily, my liege.
[McTweet brings MacTrump a small painting of the crowd.
MACTRUMP
Take thou a bigger picture, pesky rogue.
[McTweet presents a second, smaller painting.
Whatever. I’ve no need of such as these.
I have my charge as ruler over all—
King of the castle, servant unto none,
Brave keeper of th’United Fiefdoms’ might,
Surpassing e’en Hillaria O’Clinton.
The country and its plebians are mine!
Bow down before me! I, the great MacTrump!
SUPPORTERS
Hail!
PROTESTORS
—Fail!
ROBERTSON
—Are you prepar’d to take the oath,
The sacred promise of this noble office?
MACTRUMP
More ready am I quickly to get hence—
My stones are freezing. Who hath pick’d this day?
Let them be thrown into a dungeon bleak.
ROBERTSON
Good sovereign MacTrump, raise your right hand.
[MacTrump raises his left hand.