by Tom Stoppard
ROS: I think we can say he made us look ridiculous.
GUIL: We played it close to the chest of course.
ROS ( derisively): "Question and answer. Old ways are the best ways"! He was scoring off us all down the line.
GUIL: He caught us on the wrong foot once or twice, perhaps, but I thought we gained some ground.
ROS ( simply): He murdered us.
GUIL: He might have had the edge.
ROS ( roused): Twenty-seven-three, and you think he might have had the edge?! He murdered us.
GUIL: What about our evasions?
ROS: Oh, our evasions were lovely. "Were you sent for?" he says. "My lord, we were sent for..." I didn't know when to put myself.
GUIL: He had six rhetoricals
ROS: It was question and answer, all right. Twenty-seven questions he got out in ten minutes, and answered three. I was waiting for you to delve. "When is he going to start delving?" I asked myself.
GUIL: And two repetitions.
ROS: Hardly a leading question between us.
GUIL: We got his symptoms, didn't we?
ROS: Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all.
GUIL: Thwarted ambition---a sense of grievance, that's my diagnosis.
ROS: Six rhetorical and two repetition, leaving nineteen, of which we answered fifteen. And what did we get in return? He's depressed!... Denmark's a prison and he'd rather live in a nutshell; some shadow-play about the nature of ambition, which never got down to cases, and finally one direct question which might have led somewhere, and led in fact to his illuminating, claim to tell a hawk from a handsaw.
Pause.
GUIL: When the wind is southerly.
ROS: And the weather's clear.
GUIL: And when it isn't he can't.
ROS: He's at the mercy of the elements. ( Licks his finger and holds it up-facing audience. ) Is that southerly?
They stare at audience.
GUIL: It doesn't look southerly. What made you think so?
ROS: I didn't say I think so. It could be northerly for all I know.
GUIL: I wouldn't have thought so.
ROS: Well, if you're going to be dogmatic.
GUIL: Wait a minute---we came from roughly south according to a rough map.
ROS: I see. Well, which way did we come in? (GUIL looks round vaguely. ) Roughly.
GUIL ( clears his throat): In the morning the sun would be easterly. I think we can assume that.
ROS: That it's morning?
GUIL: If it is, and the sun is over there ( his right as he faces the audience) for instance, that ( front) would be northerly. On the other hand, if it is not morning and the sun is over there ( his left)... that... ( lamely) would still be northerly. ( Picking up. ) To put it another way, if we came from down there ( front) and it is morning, the sun would be up there ( his left), and if it is actually over there ( his right) and it's still morning, we must have come from up there ( behind him), and if that is southerly ( his left) and the sun is really over there ( front), then it's the afternoon. However, if none of these is the case ROS: Why don't you go and have a look?
GUIL: Pragmatism?!---is that all you have to offer? You seem to have no conception of where we stand! You won't find the answer written down for you in the bowl of a compass, I can tell you that. ( Pause. ) Besides, you can never tell this far north---it's probably dark out there.
ROS: I merely suggest that the position of the sun, if it is out, would give you a rough idea of the time; alternatively clock, if it is going, would give you a rough idea of the position of the sun. I forget which you're trying to establish.
GUIL: I'm trying to establish the direction of the wind.
ROS: There isn't any wind. Draught, yes.
GUIL: In that case, the origin. Trace it to its source and it might give us a rough idea of the way we came in---which might give us a rough idea of south, for further reference.
ROS: It's coming up through the floor. ( He studies the floor. ) That can't be south, can it?
GUIL: That's not a direction. Lick your toe and wave it around a bit.
ROS considers the distance of his foot.
ROS: No, I think you'd have to lick it for me.
Pause.
GUIL: I'm prepared to let the whole matter drop.
ROS: Or I could lick yours, of course.
GUIL: No thank you.
ROS: I'll even wave it around for you.
GUIL ( down ROS 'S throat): What in God's name is the matter with you?
ROS: Just being friendly. GUIL: ( retiring): Somebody might come in. It's what were counting on, after all. Ultimately.
Good pause.
ROS: Perhaps they've all trampled each other to death in the rush... Give them a shout.
Something provocative. Intrigue them.
GUIL: Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...
condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one---that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we were lost. ( He sits. ) A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty---
and, by which definition, a philosopher---dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
A good pause. ROS leaps up and bellows at the audience.
ROS: Fire!
GUIL jumps up.
GUIL: Where?
ROS: It's all right---I'm demonstrating the misuse of free speech. To prove that it exists. ( He regards the audience, that is the direction, with contempt---and other directions, then front again. ) Not a move. They should burn to death in their shoes. ( He takes out one of his coins. Spins it. Catches it. Looks at it. Replaces it. ) GUIL: What was it?
ROS: What?
GUIL: Heads or tails?
ROS: Oh. I didn't look.
GUIL: Yes you did.
ROS: Oh, did I? ( He takes out a coin, studies it. ) Quite right---it rings a bell.
GUIL: What's the last thing you remember?
ROS: I don't wish to be reminded of it.
GUIL: We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
ROS approaches him brightly, holding a coin between finger and thumb. He covers it with his other hand, draws his fists apart and holds them for GUIL. GUIL considers them.
Indicate the left hand, ROS opens it to show it empty.
ROS: No.
Repeat process. GUIL indicates left hand again. ROS shows it empty. Double bluff!
Repeat process--- GUIL taps one hand, then the other hand, quickly. ROS inadvertently shows that both are empty. ROS laughs as GUIL turns upstage. ROS stops laughing, looks around his feet, pats his clothes, puzzled. POLONIUS breaks that up by entering upstage followed by the TRAGEDIANS and HAMLET .
POLONIUS ( entering): Come sirs.
HAMLET: Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play tomorrow. ( Aside to the PLAYER , who is the last of the TRAGEDIANS) Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play The Murder of Gonzago?
PLAYER: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: We'll ha't tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in't, could you not?
PLAYER: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.
The PLAYER crossing downstage, notes ROS and GUIL . Stops. HAMLET crossing downstage addresses them without pause.
HAMLET: My good friends, I'll leave you till tonight. You are welcome to Elsinore.
ROS: Good, my lord.
HAMLET goes.
GUIL: So you've caught up.
PLAYER ( coldl
y): Not yet, sir.
GUIL: Now mind your tongue, or we'll have it out and throw the rest of you away, like a nightingale at a Roman feast.
ROS: Took the very words out of my mouth.
GUIL: You'd be lost for words.
ROS: You'd be tongue-tied.
GUIL: Like a mute in a monologue.
ROS: Like a nightingale at a Roman feast.
GUIL: Your diction will go to pieces.
ROS: Your lines will be cut.
GUIL: To dumbshows.
ROS: And dramatic pauses.
GUIL: You'll never find your tongue.
ROS: Lick your lips.
GUIL: Taste your tears.
ROS: Your breakfast.
GUIL: You won't know the difference.
ROS: There won't be any.
GUIL: We'll take the very words out of your mouth.
ROS: So you've caught on.
GUIL: So you've caught up.
PLAYER ( tops): Not yet! ( Bitterly. ) You left us.
GUIL: Ah! I'd forgotten---you performed a dramatic spectacle on the way. Yes, I'm sorry we had to miss it.
PLAYER ( bursts out): We can't look each other in the face! ( Pau more in control. ) You don't understand the humiliation of --to be tricked out of the single assumption which makes of it existence viable---that somebody is watching... The plot was two corpses gone before we caught sight of ourselves, stripped naked in the middle of nowhere and pouring ourselves down a bottomless well.
ROS: Is that thirty-eight?
PLAYER ( lost): There we were---demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance --- and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. ( He rounds on them. ) Don't you see?! We're actors---we're the opposite of people! ( They recoil nonplussed, his voice calms. ) Think, in your head, now, think of the most... private... secret... intimate thing you have ever done secure in the knowledge of its privacy... ( He gives them---and the audience---a good pause. ROS takes on a shifty look. ) Are you thinking of it? ( He strikes with his voice and his head. ) Well, I saw you do it!
ROS leaps up, dissembling madly.
ROS: You never! It's a lie! ( He catches himself with a giggle in a vacuum and sits down again. )
PLAYER: We're actors... We pledged our identities, secure in the conventions of our trade, that someone would be watching. And then, gradually, no one was. We were caught, high and dry. It was not until the murderer's long soliloquy that we were able to look around; frozen as we were in profile, our eyes searched you out, first confidently, then hesitantly, then desperately as each patch of turf, each log, every exposed corner in every direction proved uninhabited, and all the while the murderous King addressed the horizon with his dreary interminable guilt... Our heads began to move, wary as lizards, the corpse of unsullied Rosalinda peeped through his fingers, and the King faltered.
Even then, habit and a stubborn trust that our audience spied upon us from behind the nearest bush, forced our bodies to blunder on long after they had emptied of meaning, until like runaway carts they dragged to a halt. No one came forward. No one shouted at us. The silence was unbreakable, it imposed itself upon us; it was obscene. We took off our crowns and swords and cloth of gold and moved silent on the road to Elsinore.
Silence. Then GUIL claps solo with slow measured irony.
GUIL: Brilliantly re-created---if these eyes could weep!... Rather strong on metaphor, mind you. No criticism---only a matter of taste. And so here you are---with a vengeance.
That's a figure of speech... isn't it? Well let's say we've made up for it, for you may have no doubt whom to thank for your performance at the court
ROS: We are counting on you to take him out of himself. You are the pleasures which we draw him on to---( he escapes a fractional giggle but recovers immediately) and by that I don't mean your usual filth; you can't treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires. They know nothing of that and you know nothing of them, to your mutual survival. So give him a good clean show suitable for all the family, or you can rest assured you'll be playing the tavern tonight.
GUIL: Or the night after.
ROS: Or not.
PLAYER: We already have an entry here. And always have had
GUIL: You've played for him before?
PLAYER: Yes, sir.
ROS: And what's his bent?
PLAYER: Classical.
ROS: Saucy!
GUIL: What will you play?
PLAYER: The Murder of Gonzago.
GUIL: Full of fine cadence and corpses.
PLAYER: Pirated from the Italian...
ROS: What is it about?
PLAYER: It's about a King and Queen. .
GUIL: Escapism! What else?
PLAYER: Blood
GUIL: Love and rhetoric.
PLAYER: Yes. ( Going. )
GUIL: Where are you going?
PLAYER: I can come and go as I please.
GUIL: You're evidently a man who knows his way around.
PLAYER: I've been here before.
GUIL: We're still finding our feet.
PLAYER: I should concentrate on not losing your heads.
GUIL: Do you speak from knowledge?
PLAYER: Precedent.
GUIL: You've been here before.
PLAYER: And I know which way the wind is blowing.
GUIL: Operating on two levels, are we?! How clever! I expect it comes naturally to you, being in the business so to speak. The PLAYER's grave face does not change. He makes to move off again. GUIL for the second time cuts him off. The truth is, we value your company, for want of any other. We have been left so much to our own devices after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other people's.
PLAYER: Uncertainty is the normal state. You're nobody special.
He makes to leave again. GUIL loses his cool.
GUIL: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!
PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.
GUIL: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.
PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.
GUIL: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.
PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.
What do you assume?
ROS: Hamlet is not himself, outside or in. We have to glean what afflicts him.
GUIL: He doesn't give much away.
PLAYER: Who does, nowadays?
GUIL: He's---melancholy.
PLAYER: Melancholy?
ROS: Mad.
PLAYER: How is he mad?
ROS: Ah. ( To GUIL :) How is he mad?
GUIL: More morose than mad, perhaps.
PLAYER: Melancholy.
GUIL: Moody.
ROS: He has moods.
PLAYER: Of moroseness?
GUIL: Madness. And yet.
ROS: Quite.
GUIL: For instance.
ROS: He talks to himself, which might be madness.
GUIL: If he didn't talk sense, which he does.
ROS: Which suggests the opposite.
PLAYER: Of what?
Small pause.
GUIL: I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.
ROS: Or just as mad.
GUIL: Or just as mad.
ROS: And he does both.
GUIL: So there you are.
; ROS: Stark raving sane.
Pause.
PLAYER: Why?
GUIL: Ah. ( TO ROS :) Why?
ROS: Exactly.
GUIL: Exactly what?
ROS: Exactly why.
GUIL: Exactly why what?
ROS: What?
GUIL: Why?
ROS: Why what, exactly?
GUIL: Why is he mad?!
ROS: I don't know!
Beat.
PLAYER: The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.
ROS ( appalled): Good God! We're out of our depth here.
PLAYER: No, no, no---he hasn't got a daughter---the old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.
ROS: The old man is?
PLAYER: Hamlet, in love with the old man's daughter, the old man thinks.
ROS: Ha! It's beginning to make sense! Unrequited passion!
The PLAYER moves.
GUIL: ( Fascist. ) Nobody leaves this room! ( Pause, lamely. ) Without a very good reason.
PLAYER: Why not?
GUIL: All this strolling about is getting too arbitrary by half---I'm rapidly losing my grip.
From now on reason will prevail.
PLAYER: I have lines to learn.
GUIL: Pass!
The PLAYER passes into one of the wings. ROS cups his hands and shouts into the opposite one.
ROS: Next! But no one comes.
GUIL: What did you expect?
ROS: Something... someone... nothing. They sit facing front. Are you hungry?
GUIL: No, are you?
ROS ( thinks): No. You remember that coin?
GUIL: No.
GUIL: What coin?
ROS: I don't remember exactly.
Pause.
GUIL: Oh, that coin... clever.
ROS: I can't remember how I did it.
GUIL: It probably comes natural to you.
ROS: Yes, I've got a show-stopper there.
GUIL: Do it again.
Slight pause.
ROS: We can't afford it.
GUIL: Yes, one must think of the future.
ROS: It's the normal thing.
GUIL: To have one. One is, after all, having it all the time now... and now... and now. .
ROS: It could go on for ever. Well, not for ever, I suppose. ( Pause. ) Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?
GUIL: No.
ROS: Nor do I, really... It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead... which should make all the difference... shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air- --you'd wake up dead, for a start, and then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it..