I Was Cleopatra

by Dennis Abrams

  And it is perhaps by our own good fortune or the providence of God that we were traveling from Barnstaple to Saffron Walden when word reached us that the Gunpowder Treason Plot, led by the Catholic fiend Guy Fawkes, had been discovered, and the conspirators were quickly being brought to justice.

  I have until now avoided writing about the political issues of that time, focusing instead on myself and the theater, but since the plot was so grievous and did impact both my myself and my career in ways most unexpected, I feel it is incumbent on me to give a brief retelling of the events.

  The plot, led by the villainous Robert Catesby, a rebel against both his king and his God, was meant to blow up the palace where sat the Parliament for its opening session on the 5th of November, in the hopes that it would bring about a popular uprising. The schemers wanted to bring Princess Elizabeth, James’s nine-year-old daughter, to the throne as the new Catholic head of state. The traitorous Guy Fawkes was given charge of the explosives.

  But, by the grace of God, the fiendish plot was made known to the authorities in a letter sent to William Parker, fourth Baron Monteagle, and so it was that around midnight of the 4th of November, Fawkes was discovered in the labyrinth of tunnels deep under the Houses of Parliament, guarding thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. This would have been enough to turn the House of Lords to rubble, killing everyone within, including our Sovereign Lord the King; his most excellent and dearest wife, the gracious Queen Anne; the most noble Prince Henry, their elder son, and so the future hope and joy of England; along with the lords spiritual and temporal, the reverend judges of the realm, the knights, citizens and burgesses of Parliament; and assorted others of the king’s faithful subjects and servants, all of whom, with no respect paid to majesty, degree, dignity, sex, age or place, would have been most barbarously destroyed and swallowed up in the explosion.

  In truth, had the evil scheme not been prevented, it has been said that more than thirty thousand persons would have perished in a single stroke; the city itself would have been sacked, affecting both rich and poor; and the world would have been witness to a spectacle more horrible and terrifying than any ever before seen. Added to the bodily carnage would have been the loss of all of the repositories of English law and history, along with our greatest architectural landmarks. The Hall of Judgement, the Court of Records, the Collegiate Church, the City of Westminster and even Whitehall itself would have been lost in the explosion and very fires of hell that would certainly have followed.

  The king quickly had his justice and revenge. Fawkes was immediately arrested. The remaining plotters largely fled London as soon as they learned their plot had been discovered, and although they tried to find support among the populace along the way, they were largely unsuccessful, and several, including the traitor Catesby, were shot and killed by the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester. Their bodies were later removed from the graves in which they had quickly been buried and then disemboweled. Their various and sundry body parts were sent to the towns and villages from which they came to be displayed publicly. Their heads were sent to London, where they were left to rot on iron poles at Parliament.

  I must add here that while upon my arrival in London I had found such a display a shock to my eyes and very system, now I found it fitting judgment. On my daily walk from home to the theater, I watched the heads slowly decay and get pecked at and eaten away by carrion birds.

  And of the eight who did survive, including the villain Fawkes, they were put on trial on the 27th of January 1606 and were convicted with great speed and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

  After the shock of the attempted murder of our king had passed, along with fear and a need to take revenge, a sense of relief and pride in the greatness of our nation swept through the land, as well as a fervent desire to understand where such evil could possibly have arisen from. Heminges seized on the opportunity to not only demonstrate the King’s Men’s loyalty to our royal patron and our nation, but to also, if truth be told, capitalize on the moment. He put back into our repertory Master Shakespeare’s plays historical that tell the stories of Kings Richard II and III, of Henry IV and V and VI, as well as dramas that tell the glorious story of England and the ultimate triumph of Henry VII, the grandfather of our late beloved Queen Elizabeth, and also the great-great-grandfather of His Royal Highness, King James I of England and Ireland.

  It would be the 15th of December before the city fathers allowed the theaters in London to reopen, so until then we toured. Audiences came out in large and enthusiastic numbers to thrill to our playing of English history on such a broad and grand scale. Since men are indeed the primary drivers of historical events, the glory of our Virgin Queen Elizabeth notwithstanding, my new roles were somewhat limited — the whore Joan la Pucelle, known by some as Joan of Arc, in The First Part of Henry the Sixth, as well as the scheming Margaret of Anjou, who married Henry VI to become Queen of England.

  Joan and Margaret were types of personages I had yet to attempt. Joan was a warrior woman, which gave me the opportunity to use my training in those arts. She ends up being rightfully burned at the stake as a strumpet and witch, cursing her captors as she goes:

  May never glorious sun reflex his beams

  Upon the country where you make abode,

  But darkness and the gloomy shade of death

  Environ you, till mischief and despair

  Drive you to break your necks, or hang yourselves.

  It was, I must confess, difficult for me to practice those lines without laughing, Joan’s anger and way of thinking and speaking being so foreign to my own. But after several attempts, I was able, I think, to play Joan the way that the author of the play intended. Master Heminges was kind enough to not only let me know that he was pleased with the progress I had made, but that he would tell Master Shakespeare as well, for he had gone to Stratford when the theaters closed in order to work on new plays for us.

  With the theaters once again open in the city, we returned to London to prepare for the holiday season that was to come. It would be an especially festive celebration, not only of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also of the miraculous salvation of our king and sovereign and his family from the treacherous plotting of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators.

  For the season, we performed for the king and his court the history plays with which we had achieved such success touring England’s towns and larger cities. Shakespeare himself was in attendance and seemed to pay especially close attention to my personation of Queen Margaret in The Third Part of Henry the Sixth. I was told he watched and listened carefully as I read the she-wolf Margaret’s speech in which she taunts the captured Duke of York, causing him to suffer greatly with the news that his son, Rutland, had mere moments prior been unmercifully murdered by her men at her order:

  … where is your darling, Rutland?

  Look, York, I stained this napkin with the blood

  That valiant Clifford with his rapier’s point

  Made issue from the bosom of the boy;

  And if thine eyes can water for his death,

  I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.

  It is here that I must make my confession. As much as I was learning to take great pleasure in assuming roles that were so far outside of the type I had previously been given and that were, frankly, far outside of the type of personage that I saw myself as being, I was also envious that my Alexander was performing the part of the older Margaret in The Tragedy of Richard III, a character who in one moment unleashes her rage against the king:

  Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.

  If heaven have any grievous plague in store

  Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,

  O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,

  And then hurl down their indignation

  On thee, the troubler of the world’s peace …

  Thou elvish-marked, abortive, r
ooting hog,

  Thou that was sealed in thy nativity

  The slave of nature and the son of hell;

  Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb,

  Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins,

  Thou rag of honour, thou detested —

  And then later to Queen Elizabeth (not, I assure you, Queen Elizabeth I, but Elizabeth, the widow of King Edward IV, recently murdered by Richard):

  Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,

  Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider,

  Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?

  Fool, fool, thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.

  The day will come that thou shalt wish for me

  To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed toad.

  Speeches such as these, I was learning, allow the actor the opportunity to perform fully for the crowd, and it is with a strong sense of shame that I admit to feelings of jealousy towards Alexander. I was jealous that the role he was given to enact was one that would so fully draw the attention of the audience, and as well, I must admit, its loud and appreciative admiration of his skills.

  As I watched from the rear, listening intently to every word, and again I shamefacedly confess, quietly performing the role, reading the lines and gesticulating to myself, I saw Masters Shakespeare and Heminges watching me, both wearing a look of amusement and curiosity.

  Afterwards, Shakespeare, upon whose visage appeared a struggle between bemusement and thoughtful seriousness, pulled me aside to speak, or so he said, on matters of singular importance. Quite naturally, my initial thought was that he was in some way displeased with my work, since I can only assume he was able to read my thoughts on my face, but he immediately dispelled that notion.

  “No, young John,” he said reassuringly. “You have no need for concern. Burbage and Heminges and I are tremendously satisfied with your work and how far you have come in so relatively short a period of time. You have done my work, our troupe and the king proud.” And then, as I breathed an all too audible sigh of relief, and as the tension in my body eased, he asked, “Do you think you are ready for your first lead part? Your master and myself are both convinced that you are, but tell me, John, and there is no shame in telling me otherwise if you don’t think yourself ready. But let me tell you as sure as I am standing here, I believe you are. So what say you?”

  I was unable to speak after hearing Shakespeare’s words of confidence in me, but once again it seemed that my face, which undoubtedly expressed my astonishment and pleasure, told the story.

  “Fine. The play is not yet complete, but I can tell you this — it will have witches and murder and demonstrate what befalls those whose ambition leads them to murder. It will be dark and gloomy, and will at the same time demonstrate that it is fit and right and just that James I should be our king.

  Your role, John, that of Lady Macbeth, will be by far the most complex and, in some ways, villainous one you have ever had the opportunity to personate. She will begin as a loving wife who, pushing her husband on to what they both see as greatness, encourages him to commit murder — not just murder, mind you, John, but murder of the king in their own home while he is under their protection. Her ambition for her husband will ultimately end in their mutual destruction. Macbeth, who becomes a ruler most tyrannical, will be killed by an army that wishes to put the rightful leader on the throne, and Lady Macbeth, who will be driven mad by her crimes, and … to be honest with you, John, I am not certain yet how she will end. I am still working that out in my mind. Perhaps you might be able to suggest something for me?”

  At this point he laughed, as did I.

  “What concerns me, John, now that all involved in the nefarious Gunpowder Plot have been given the justice they deserved, is how and why it could have happened. Not merely the specific political and religious reasons for the plot, but in a larger sense how does a seemingly normal if ambitious Scottish nobleman become a murderous tyrant and perform such truly unthinkable and unutterable acts of violence? What sorts of lies and stories and pretended reasons do such men tell themselves to justify their actions? Is the source of their evil within themselves, or are they being acted upon by outside forces?”

  At this point Shakespeare, who had seemingly become carried away with his own thoughts, glanced at me with a slightly embarrassed look on his face and so continued.

  “At any rate, my young friend, with your help I am certain that we can make the play a success and one that will, I fervently believe, establish your reputation throughout London as an actor with gifts most special. May I rely on you, John, to work hard and to trust in me that I will do everything in my power to help you and be there for you every step of your path?”

  As he said those words, I could feel my heart swell with pride and determination. I felt stirrings within me of a greater ambition than I had known as of yet. Not only would my playing of Lady Macbeth demonstrate to Master Shakespeare as well as Master Heminges and the rest of the King’s Men that their trust in me was not unwarranted. It would, if all went well and according to God’s will, show the world what I, John Rice, was capable of. That in my personal singularity I was perhaps capable of greatness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In which I work closely with

  Master Shakespeare while

  preparing to personate Lady

  Macbeth

  It was during the midst of our regular season, in March 1606, that Shakespeare came to me to let me know that his play, now formally titled The Tragedy of Macbeth, was for the most part complete. He requested that I come to his lodgings the following morning so that we could work in quiet seclusion without the hurly-burly and constant distractions found every day at the Globe.

  I was honored and flattered not only that he would be taking the time to help me do his work all good justice, but that he would ask me to enter his home. It was well known among the King’s Men that while at the theater Master Shakespeare was most approachable, when he left the Globe, his life and home were his own. So I went dressed in my finest attire, which had been given to me at the beginning of the year by Master Heminges as part of my apprenticeship, instead of appearing before Master Shakespeare in the usual mix of clothing passed on to me by Mistress Heminges as her own children outgrew it.

  Even so, despite being fittingly dressed for the occasion, it was with feelings of nervousness that I walked from the Heminges’s family home to the corner of Silver and Muggle streets in Cripplegate where Master Shakespeare took lodgings with Christopher and Marie Mountgay, makers of fashionable headwear for ladies of the court. I knew not what to expect when I knocked at his door and heard him shout, “Come in, John. You’re punctual as usual.”

  I was pleased to see a home like that of any other man — simple furniture, what seemed a bed of good quality, all kept as orderly as one could expect, with the exception of the writer’s work area. There were to be seen parchments strewn about, pens of various and sundry stages of usage, inkpots as well, and as might be expected, volumes of books piled around the edges of the desk. Seeing my interest, Shakespeare allowed me to look closely at the ones he described as his “most treasured companions.”

  There was a fine set of Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, which he told me he had made fine use of during the writing of Macbeth. There were several volumes of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, and while telling me “there are fine stories to be found in them,” his face wore a look of surprised and pleased inspiration. There were copies, both in Latin and in English, of what seemed to be much-loved and much-pored-over editions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, “which, young John, I suspect you know well from your schooling.” There was a work new to me, Essays by Michel de Montaigne, and the most well-worn volume of the lot, John Baret’s Alvearie, which was, as its full title makes clear, An Alvearie or Quadruple Dictionary, containing four sundry tongues, na
mely, English, Latin, Greek, and French, newly enriched with a variety of words, phrases, proverbs, and diverse lightsome observations of Grammar — a source of great information that I had used during my school days, and one that it seemed Shakespeare consulted on a daily basis.

  And so after clearing away space around his writing table for us both to sit, as well as gently pushing away a large orange-colored cat (“move away, Tybalt,” he affectionately told him, “we must work”), Master Shakespeare presented me with a parchment manuscript. Written in his own hand, it included not just my lines with the cues as was customary when presented one’s roll at the Globe, but all the scenes in which I, or should I say Lady Macbeth, appeared in their entirety. This was a luxury that allowed me not only to know my own lines, but those of the other actors in those scenes, which I much appreciated. It was an opportunity to get a sense of not only what the play would be about, but the role that Lady Macbeth played in the story.

  We read through my scenes together. Shakespeare started off by laughingly informing me, “It’s been quite a while since I have acted, and as anyone who has ever seen my work on the stage will swear to, John, I am, as I say with all due modesty, a far better writer of plays than I ever was an actor of them.”

  Regardless of his protests though, as we read through the first half of the play, the portion in which the majority of my acting took place, I could, as we progressed, witness a change in the way he read his lines, so that what began as a slow and deliberate reading became, steadily and surely, a performance. Indeed, Master Shakespeare changed before my eyes into Macbeth.

  When the play begins, Macbeth is Scotland’s Thane of Glamis under King Duncan, but as he fulfills the prophecy of the three Weird Sisters, who were in truth the witches that Shakespeare promised me, he becomes Thane of Cawdor, and then, pushed on by his wife to murder Duncan, King of Scotland.