Saturday, February 29, 2020

Malvolio Returns

Malvolio returned
To find everyone deceased

A plague had swept the land of Illyria
And bodies were strewn on its beaches
Like so much refuse

Malvolio was shocked
And saddened
Because his plan for revenge
Was diabolical and charismatic
With many twists and turns
That would now be useless
Since all his foes were decomposing
And nature didn’t need to work half as hard
To enact retribution on all of them

‘Well wait,’ said Malvolio, 
Addressing the Narrator
Who is me

‘I didn’t want them dead’

I’m sorry
Am I supposed to answer Malvolio or--?

‘I didn’t want them dead
I just wanted to be, you know,
Avenged’

Right, no, I get that
I--This is very strange

I get that you just wanted vengeance
But vengeance can mean bodies
Strewn about the beach
I mean, that is sort of what vengeance
Looks like

‘Yeah, no, I understand that,
But this just seems a little extreme
Doesn’t it?

I mean, we’re talking about
Twelfth Night here
Not Titus Andronicus

Okay, I feel like we’re doing a scene now
And this is supposed to be a monologue
About how you wander the beaches
Walking in between the dead--

‘That is so depressing
I’m sorry
But wow, that is--
Yeah, I don’t know about that
I’m not sure that’s the direction
I would have taken
With this’

Well, what do you want--

‘Can I speak to the writer?’

I think I’m meant to represent
The writer

‘I know that, but can I speak
To the real writer?’

You want to speak to Shakespeare?

‘No, not my writer
Your writer’

--Hi, sorry, can I help you Malvolio?--

‘Yeah, I’m just--what is this?
I assumed you were going to do
Something whimsical here
And now I’m basically in a zombie movie’

They’re not zombies
They’re just dead
Everyone’s dead
There was a plague

‘Yeah, I get that’

--I thought it was an interesting take--

‘Interesting would have been
Letting me act out my revenge plot
And then, you know, joining in
On all the festivities
And finding happiness’

--That just feels like the easy way out--

So should I pick another monologue?

‘You can’t just pick another monologue
You have to finish this monologue’

--It IS finished.  It’s done--

I could edit it

--It’s too late to edit it
You’re performing it already
We’re in the middle of it--

‘Can we at least retcon
The whole plague thing?’

--Plagues happen
That is a real thing--

‘You know what’s not real
Illyria, theater, me, and pretty much
Everything we’ve talked about so far’

I don’t see why we can’t give him
A happy ending
I think that’s what people
Are looking for anyway
Let’s not try to reinvent the wheel here
It’s just a nice little monologue

--That has now been hijacked
And turned into some post-modern scene--

‘What if I run into Puck?
Can I run into Puck?
Love Puck
Big fan’

--There are no faeries in your play--

‘There weren’t any plagues either
Until you and the Narrator got involved’

Is Puck from Tempest?

‘This is who you’re letting narrate?’

--Tell you what
Narrator, can you read that other piece I gave you?
Just substitute the first name for Malvolio
It won’t make much sense, but it’ll at least
Give him what he wants--

Sure

‘I shall return to my--’

Sarah was waiting for him
Ready to rebuild his house

Malvolio Usher, she said,
You’ve pushed and pushed
But you can only push for so long
Before you gotta try
Holding onto something

Then Malvolio watched
As the whole town
Helped put his house
Back together

And he couldn’t help
But feel grateful

For the lot of them

Friday, February 28, 2020

Moliere Forgets the Rhyme

He does not recall
The rhyme he wrote

I see him standing there
Struggling to find the word
That ends his line

Poor Monsieur Moliere
Grasping at straws

Oh, if only he had used the word ‘straws’
So many rhymes for ‘straws’

Draws
Pause
Laws

But no, he went for the clever rhyme
As he often does
And now look at him

Sweating like a minister
At a madame’s house
Trying to kill time
As if the audience doesn’t know
That he can’t remember the rhyme

We tell him over and over
He needs to write plain prose
Such as some of the other writers do

Then, if you forget something
You can improvise
Whereas with these rhyming couplets
It’s starkly evident
When the word escapes you
As it often does
When you get on in years

Why just last week
I was performing one of the Monsieur’s monologues
This endless diatribe about the etiquette of virgins
And wouldn’t you know it?

The word that rhymes with deflower
Fell completely out of my mind

There was nothing to do but come up with a new couplet
Never finishing the old one
And the audience was in an uproar
But what choice did I have?

Moliere cornered me after the performance
And asked after my mental well-being
Which I assured him was tip-top

Even the springiest of chickens
Have moments of autumn, do they not?

But the Monsieur assured me
That his mind is as taut as ever
And yet there he stands
Onstage, wringing his little hands
Trying to remember
His latest witty invention

Do you hear the coughing in the crowd?
The tsk-tsk-ing of the ticket-holders?
Hold your breath and you’ll feel it
The tension
The anxiety

It’s quite lovely
If you’re not the cause of it

I don’t take any pleasure myself
In watching the Monsieur struggle
But I hope he’ll be kinder to those of us
Who find his linguistic olympics
A bit tiresome at times

He’s not a cruel man
By any means

In fact, just last week
I found him in his dressing quarters
Weeping over something he’d written

‘Monsieur Moliere,’ I gasped,
Unable to hide my surprise
At seeing him show his emotion
In such a way

‘Whatever is wrong?’

He looked up with the saddest eyes
I’ve ever seen set so deep
In a face so marked for humor
And said--

‘I wrote something
No one will enjoy’

How does one respond
To such a statement?

I sat down with him
And assured him
That someone would indeed
Enjoy what it was
He had written

But he told me that wasn’t the point
That--yes, he was injured
Knowing that his latest creation
Wouldn’t bring joy to anyone
But it brought him great joy
And so he was faced with feeling pride
In something he knew
Would only really give pleasure to himself
And what is one to do with a situation such as that?

An artist?

What could they do?

He said he would keep it hidden
That piece of writing
And even I was not permitted
To take a look at it

That was last week
And tonight he stands onstage
Struggling to do what he believes
He does so well

Make people happy

But he can’t find the rhyme

Isn’t that sad?

Even this thing
This thing that belongs to him
And only him

It escapes him

As hard as he tries to hold it
And as sure as he is
That it will be appreciated
It isn’t his to share

And he didn’t know it
Until the moment
He tried to speak

Sometimes you write words
That are meant to be spoken quickly
And when you do
You must never spend one second
Thinking about the speed
Or the agility of the language
Or what is it you want it to do

You must just speak
And hope
Speak and hope

Monsieur Moliere--he speaks

But I fear for his hope

I fear that when he goes
To reach for it
He’ll forget what it was
He was reaching for

And there will be nothing else

To say