Or “What good love may I perform for you?”
Many a poor man’s son would have lien still
And ne’er have spoke a loving word to you;
But you at your sick-service had a prince.
Nay, you think my love was crafty love,
And call it cunning: do, and if you will.
If heaven be pleas’d that you must use me ill,
Why then you must. Will you put out mine eyes?
These eyes that never did nor never shall
So much as frown on you.
I looked at Master Shakespeare with tears in my eyes as he read Hubert the jailer’s next lines in a surprisingly shaky voice:
I have sworn to do it;
And with hot irons must I burn them out.
A silence filled the corner we were in for several moments as we considered the impact the scene we had just performed had had on both of us.
“John,” Master Shakespeare said, “I knew my confidence in you had been well placed. Truth be told, that was as fine a reading of that scene as I have ever heard. And on your first reading at that! Well done, John, very well done. The role shall be yours when next we perform it.
“However,” he said, “I am not going to let you off without a bit of advice. While reading the lines, consider how and when you take your next breath. The lines and phrases have been kept short for a reason. You are not able, because you are still young and not fully grown as yet, to control your breath as well or maintain a line as long as some of the older actors. That is the reason why, as you shall I hope notice, the speeches I give to my boy actors are, as best as can be done, shorter in length and in the very lines of verse and prose than those I give to the adult actors. Although, as I hope to be able to say, they are equally as strong.”
With which Master Shakespeare sighed, rustled my hair, looked deeply into my eyes and said, “So, young John, do not worry about what Ben the Bear said to you. I know who you are and know what you’re capable of doing. Indeed … it should not surprise me if you prove to be capable of doing far more than even I imagine. So, young John, my oh so pitiful, oh so young Prince Arthur, I pray you do not let me down.”
And with that he took my leave. And I returned to work, vowing that I would never ever let him down.
Chapter Ten
In which I perform before
King James at Whitehall
and before Queen Anne
at the home of the Earl of
Southampton, the roles I am
entrusted with grow larger
and I play my first woman’s
part, and Alexander’s actions
prove to be somewhat
bewildering
As the period from Christmas to Candlemas approached, the King’s Men were once again summoned by our Royal Patron King James to perform for himself, his family and court, as well as his honored guests, both at the Palace of Whitehall and at one special command performance for Queen Anne at the home of the Earl of Southampton.
My roles in these plays were as varied as were the plays themselves. Since my reading for Master Ben Jonson had been such a complete and dismal failure, it was thought best by all concerned that I should not perform in the two plays written by him that we performed at Whitehall — Every Man in His Humour and the play in which I had so thoroughly embarrassed myself in front of my fellow actors that I refused to even watch the performance, Every Man out of His Humour.
One of the plays in which I did play a part, The Spanish Maze, was, it shames me to admit, so forgettable that all of us concerned swore to never discuss it again and to forget the name of the play’s author as well as the fact that the drama ever even existed. The remaining plays we were commanded to perform for the court were histories, dramas and comedies by Master Shakespeare, whose works appeared to find a receptive audience with His Majesty King James. Because the plays met with his approval, they met with the approval of the entirety of the court as well.
Given my disastrous performance for Jonson, it was decided by Masters Shakespeare and Heminges that comedies, especially those of the more farcical sort, did not match well with my person and whatever talents I might, though still unproven, possess. So I was not given a role in The Comedy of Errors, but I was given the opportunity to play the role of Moth in the less farcical, more word-drunk comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost.
In the play, Moth — small and young as I myself was still small and young — serves as page to Don Adriano de Armado, a loud-mouthed braggart convinced of his own elegance and high status, and perfectly incapable of getting to the point of whatever it is he might be trying to say. As Master Shakespeare advised me, Moth’s role as Armado’s servant is to poke fun at his master.
The speeches I was given were still not of an impossible length for me to memorize — the one that follows was my longest in the play. And thanks to the advice I was given by Master Shakespeare, I was able to read the prose while taking breaths at all the appropriate places in order to keep the flow of words coming as he intended. What I took note of, and I made use of this lesson throughout my time enacting Shakespeare’s personages, was that in a speech such as this, he in essence made the prose a list of items of import, making it easier for me both to memorize and to recite:
No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose as if you snuffed up love by smelling love, with your hat penthouse-like o’er the shop of your eyes, with your arms crossed on your thin-belly doublet like a rabbit on a spit, or your hands in your pocket like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are compliments, these are humours, that betray nice wenches that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note — do you note me? — that most are affected to these.
This was not the most challenging of roles, but I still took a particular pride in performing it, in particular in the interchanges between myself and Don Armado. The performance seemed to be well received. We performed it three times during the season, including once at the royal request of Queen Anne at the home of the Earl of Southampton, and so I will allow that at the very least my work did not bring shame to the King’s Men.
However, what is perhaps of particular interest is that during the course of this season, I finally, more than a year into my apprenticeship, was given my first women’s roles — that of the nun Francesca in Measure for Measure and a much larger role and what felt like the first test of my ability to become a woman, Princess Katherine in Henry V.
The role of Francesca consisted of only nine easily remembered lines, and dressed in a nun’s habit that concealed my entire body and a wimple that concealed most of my face as well, it was hardly a worthy test of my ability to become a convincing woman on stage. But for my beloved Alexander, playing the lead role of Isabella was a test he was (I hate to allow, although I must speak the truth) barely able to pass.
He was older now, close to twenty years of age, and his salad days performing women’s roles would very soon be behind him. His movements had lost a portion of their grace, and his visage, no matter how well made-up and prepared for the stage, was that of a beautiful young man, no longer that of a beautiful young woman. I, by this time, knew him well enough that I could see the worry and fear lurking behind his eyes. And while it never affected his personation of the novice nun Isabella, it was evident to those who knew him well that he was increasingly aware that his days playing such roles were limited.
This meant, as I had been aware for some time, that I would of necessity soon be taking over the roles that Alexander had excelled in. And that of Katherine of Valois, the Princess of France courted by Henry V in the last act of Shakespeare’s play of the same name, would demonstrate to the tr
oupe whether or not my year of training had been effective or fruitless.
Katherine’s lines in Henry V are minimal, given in short phrases, and, since her command of English was limited at best, spoken in a comic combination of broken English and her native French, which was not outside my abilities. My main test would be that of movement. During the entirety of Henry’s wooing of Katherine, the two circle each other in an elaborate dance of courtship, which would show all of the assembled court at Whitehall whether or not I could move, gesture and respond to a man in the manner of a woman of royalty.
I was, I admit, as nervous as I had ever been as I sat behind the stage in the Banqueting Hall. There, after I had worked with the tire man to get into costume — a gown as sumptuous as I’d ever seen with a headtire encircled with pearls atop my head — and had painstakingly prepared my makeup, I caught a glimpse of myself in a piece of reflecting glass. It was the first time I had seen myself not as the boy, John Rice, but as a woman, Princess Katherine of France.
It was a moment I shall never forget — an unsettling experience — yet at the same time one that seemed to inform me of who I really was, in a manner that perhaps I did not need or want to know. Or, that perhaps I did.
When I saw myself, I saw John Rice, the second son of Thomas and Jane Rice of Reading, Berkshire. I also saw the soon-to-be Queen Consort of England, Princess Katherine of France. I was, I thought, both myself and Katherine at one and the same moment. I was also, it seemed to me, both John and Katherine, both boy and girl, in a way I had never before been. A momentary dizziness nearly overcame me as I gazed at my reflection in the looking glass and contemplated who exactly I was or had for the moment become, but then it was time to appear on stage.
It went by all too quickly, as though in a dream. Burbage, who excelled in the role of Henry V, moved with me as though in an intricate dance. Henry’s masculinity found a proper balance in my, or should I say Katherine’s, reticent femininity that made their wooing and my, or should I say Katherine’s, agreeing to marry Henry believable. I sensed that I had the approval of the audience, as well as that of Master Shakespeare and Alexander.
I had passed the test.
For our final performance of the court season at Whitehall, held on Shrove Tuesday, the 10th of February, we performed Shakespeare’s comedy The Merchant of Venice. Burbage, who had over the course of the previous six weeks so ably personated Henry V, Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor and the Duke in Measure for Measure, exceeded himself in playing the Jewish moneylender, Shylock. I had the good fortune to personate Shylock’s daughter, Jessica, who in the course of the comedy runs away to marry her beloved, the Christian Lorenzo, taking with her a goodly portion of her father’s wealth and using, much to the amusement of both the audience and myself, her dead mother’s turquoise ring to pay for a pet monkey.
While my part was indeed small — a mere twenty-six lines — it was a pleasure to be on the stage once again with Burbage, for we performed well together. In the same way it was easy for me to be wooed by his Henry V, it was equally easy for me to become his daughter, one who wanted nothing more than to escape a house she described as a very “hell.”
It was also a pleasure to watch Alexander portray, for the last time as it turned out, the play’s heroine, Portia. In the fourth act, she disguises herself as the male attorney Balthazar to defend the actual merchant of Venice, Antonio, in court from Shylock, to whom he owed a sizeable debt. Antonio ultimately wins a victory and forces Shylock (rightfully, as it seemed to me at the time while immersed in the play) to convert to Christianity.
Alexander was, in a word, magnificent in the role and well knew it himself, as I could sense from the pleasure he took in reciting Portia’s big speech, one that garnered special attention and praise whenever the play was performed. When he finished the last line, there was a hush among those in Whitehall’s Banqueting Hall, followed by applause that seemed to last an eternity. The play came to a halt, and only after Alexander recited the speech a second time would those assembled allow the comedy to proceed.
When the play ended, while the rest of the King’s Men remained on stage, the lead players — Burbage, Alexander and two others — were summoned to be presented to King James. Queen Anne, having seen the play performed at an earlier date, was not in attendance.
His Highness thanked Burbage fulsomely for his portrayal of Shylock, and then, turning to Alexander with a gleam in his eye, he warmly embraced him, one arm lingering on his shoulder before allowing it to slowly drift down Alexander’s back until it grazed upon his buttocks before retreating back upwards to complete the embrace. He then summoned a courtier to his side, and, taking a small package from a gold tray, presented it to Alexander, whispering something into his ear.
In truth, I knew not what to make of this considering my close friendship with Alexander. I knew even less what to make of the scene following, when as we removed our costumes to return to our regular manner of dress, Alexander exchanged glances with a young servant girl of seventeen or eighteen who passed among us more times than seemed necessary. He then followed her off, disappearing for a good period of time, before returning to join us as we prepared to depart. I saw the other actors looking at each other and grinning — broad grins that Alexander returned with a knowing nod.
Even so, despite the attention paid to Alexander both by King James and the person I saw at the time as an all-too-forward servant girl, when we left Whitehall to return to our lodgings with Master Heminges, Alexander had his arm around my shoulders. He was laughing as we talked about our success at the court and then whispered in my ear to inform me that despite his general fastidiousness regarding his personage, he had perhaps partaken of too much wine over the course of the evening, which was apparent due to his obvious difficulty in speaking without slurring his words.
But when we finally arrived home, I was the one who was sleeping in his bed, I was the one who was being held tightly in his arms, I was the one who he pressed and thrust his manhood hard against, and who felt warm and safe and secure enough that I felt I could, at least for the moment, banish any thoughts of losing his friendship and his affections to another.
In my hope and optimism, however, and all too soon, I was proven incorrect.
Chapter Eleven
In which Alexander’s life
changes, and I find myself
feeling abandoned and alone
Whereas previously it had seemed as if Alexander’s time had been my time, that we had spent both our waking and sleeping hours together as one inseparable, as winter became spring, things seemed different. Alexander would go off on his own, needing, he told me, to explore parts of the city for which I was not yet ready, to think about what might happen now that he was outgrowing the women’s roles that had made him well-known among regular attendees at the Globe.
He was also, as I was soon to learn, going off to meet with the pretty young servant he had had his encounter with at Whitehall over the holiday season. By May, the girl, Mary Hastings, was with child, and with the blessing of Master Heminges, who appeared to be amused by the entire turn of events, the couple would be joined in holy matrimony as quickly as was legally possible.
When Alexander, as gently as he could, told me what had transpired and what was going to transpire in the future, I thought, at first, that Mary would soon be arriving to live with us. I could not begin to imagine how all three of us, and then the baby when it arrived, could share the same room, much less the same bed.
I asked Alexander how we could arrange the room to make things comfortable for both Mary and the baby. His initial reaction was to laugh, but when he saw the stricken look on my face, he stopped. Cupping my face in his hands, he told me that he would be remaining with the King’s Men, but that given the situation, Master Heminges had released him from his apprenticeship, and that he would begin looking for new lodgings the very next day. He softened the news though,
by reminding me that we would still be together every single day, and then asked me if I would do him the honor of being his sole groomsman on the day of his wedding.
I, of course, agreed to do so, despite knowing that with my participation, I was contributing to our parting.
It was warm and the sky was bright on the day of Alexander’s nuptials — an omen, I hoped, of good things to come.
Early that morning I accompanied him to a local barbershop where he was groomed and shaved. Alexander was getting shaved two to three times a week in order to keep his skin smooth and feminine, but it would be only a matter of time when no amount of shaving could keep him convincing as a young girl. He and the barber joked about my inability to grow even the slightest hair on my face, even so, I was faintly aware that when that time came, as it must, my days as a boy actor would be nearing their end.
Master Heminges was kind enough to host at a favorite tavern a wedding breakfast consisting of bread of good quality, cheese and beer in unlimited amounts. In attendance were the rest of the King’s Men, including even Master Shakespeare himself, to celebrate Alexander’s marriage. The bride, who had come to London from the countryside just seven months earlier, was alone except for one or two of the other servants from Whitehall who were able to be in attendance. Even in my sorrow at losing Alexander to her, I felt pity for her lack of family and companionship.
We made a fine sight in our procession to the church. I was honored by Alexander to be asked to lead the way, holding a gilded sprig of rosemary, meant to remind the bride to always remember her holy marriage vows. The King’s Men walked behind the nuptial couple, dressed in the clothing issued to them by King James, meant to be worn only at royal ceremonies. Heminges had decided that the occasion demanded that all concerned look their most regal.
The bride, much to my surprise, chose to honor the old tradition, still popular among the residents of some of England’s smaller towns and villages but sadly out of date in the city itself. She wore for her wedding nothing but her simplest and oldest smock, a remarkably well-worn undergarment that had seen far better days. By wearing only this in public on the day she was united with Alexander, he would not nor could ever be held responsible for any of her debts.
I Was Cleopatra Page 6