Being the True Account of the Life of William Shakespeare, performed by Mr. William Beeston, Gent., and his Troop of Alchemical Spirits, at Posbrook Farm, Titchfield, Hampshire, in the Year of Our Lord, 1623.
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ACT TWO
(The easel is in the centre with the famous painting of Southampton in the Tower of London – but with the cat not yet painted in. Artwork: copyright Kevin Fraser August 2013)
(Everything else is back to normal)
BEESTON (entering)
The Queen died and everything turned round. James became King of both Scotland and England…..
(SHAKESPEARE enters, looking a bit plumper than he did before the interval)
BEESTON
Shakespeare wrote a Sonnet. Like everyone else, he had got it all wrong. Harry did NOT die in jail…
SHAKESPEARE
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom…
BEESTON
The death of the Moon did NOT bring about Civil War……
SHAKESPEARE
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Uncertainties now crown themselves assured
And peace proclaims olives of endless age….
BEESTON
It brought in the peaceful reign of King James. He is like a magic tonic for England. He makes Harry well again and gives Will miraculous powers….
SHAKESPEARE
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh…….
(HARRY enters with his arm in the sling, like the painting, but looking sleek and handsome)
…..and death to me subscribes,
Since ’spite of him I’ll live in this dull rhyme
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes:
(SHAKESPEARE looks lovingly across the room at HARRY)
And thou in this shall find a monument
When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent…
(SHAKESPEARE exits as HARRY sits – again as in the painting)
BEESTON
(Turning round the easel, picking up a palette and putting on an artist’s smock )
Will galloped back to London to be re-united with his lover who was still in the Tower, having his portrait painted by one John de Critz….
(Enter SHAKESPEARE)
HARRY
(With massive affection) Will! (HARRY goes to get up)
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
(With heavy Dutch accent) Don’t make the movement!
(HARRY obeys. From behind his back, SHAKESPEARE produces a cat. HARRY screams and rises in terror)
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
Don’t make the movement! Don’t make the movement!
HARRY
Will! You KNOW I hate cats…..
SHAKESPEARE
But De Critz said….
HARRY
(To DE CRITZ) What did you say?
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
Sir. We agreed that this painting must be fit for a King. It must be SYMBOLICAL…
HARRY
(Not quite understanding) Yes….of course…
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
We want to show the new King how much you make the change….
HARRY
Yes…
DE CTITZ/BEESTON
How much you make the suffering….
HARRY
Yes….
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
And how much you make the learning…..
HARRY
Yes. (Stroking his hair) And how much I make the beauty!
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
Of course, sir. Goes without saying, sir….But the whole world knows you hate cats….
HARRY
So why get Will to bring one into my cell?
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
To show you have OVERCOME the fear…..To show you have CONQUERED the passion. I shall inscribe the painting ‘IN VINCULIS INVICTUS’ – ‘In the chains, but unconquered…..
HARRY
(Warming to the theme) ‘Bloodied but unbowed’…
SHAKESPEARE
‘Don’t let the buggers get you down…’
HARRY
You really are an oik, Will….
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
So, Master Shakespeare, if you will hold the cat to the right of m’lord, I shall commit him to the canvas…
SHAKESPEARE
Her…
HARRY
A country oik as well….
(SHAKESPEARE stands holding the cat for a moment.)
SHAKESPEARE
What’s the point of all this?
HARRY
Word is that James is looking for a new favourite. The Pembroke boys, of course, have rushed North to fawn all over him while I’m stuck in the Tower…
SHAKESPEARE
You did commit high treason….
(SHAKESPEARE sneaks a look at the painting.)
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
DON’T MAKE THE MOVEMENT!!!
SHAKESPEARE
Sorry. So you want James to think that you are beautiful….
HARRY
Know that I’m beautiful. My arm may be in a sling: but it shows off my wrist…And my hair becomes me well, does it not…
SHAKESPEARE
(Stifling a laugh) Wouldn’t it be best if I wrote a sonnet or two to accompany the painting….just to reinforce the idea?
HARRY
Excellent!
SHAKESPEARE
(Pause) I can’t write a sonnet while I’m holding a cat….
(He offers the cat do DE CRITZ)
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
And I can’t make the painting….
(SHAKESPEARE and DE CRITZ both look at HARRY)
HARRY
(His vanity overcoming his phobia) Oh all right then…..
(HARRY, shaking with fear, takes the cat from SHAKESPEARE and holds her in his right hand.)
DE CRITZ/BEESTON
Please stop the shake-shake, m’Lord. The cat will be blurred…
(HARRY tries to master himself as SHAKESPEARE takes out parchment and quill sits and writes a couple of lines)
HARRY
Well, Master Shake-Shake? What have you writ-writ?
SHAKESPEARE
‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit Trixie the Cat….’
(DE CRITZ turns round the painting to show the Cat painted in)
(SHAKESPEARE and HARRY exit)
BEESTON (taking off his smock)
King James did NOT make Harry his new favourite: he preferred younger, prettier men. But he did make Will a Groom of the Chamber. Dressed in the King’s scarlet livery, he held the sacred canopy over the King at his Coronation. But, compared to his love for Harry, this honour meant nothing…
(SHAKESPEARE enters dressed in scarlet, with three other SCARLET SPRITS, holding up a scarlet canopy)
SHAKESPEARE (full of joy and confidence)
Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring
Or laid great bases for eternity
Which proves more short than waste or ruining…
(SHAKESPEARE – relishing his new power – starts to take over from BEESTON. He now snaps his fingers himself and the Canopy and the other THREE SPIRITS vanish)
No! Time thou shalt not boast that I do change….
Thy pyramids, built up with newer might….
(SHAKESPEARE now suddenly snaps his fingers at BEESTON who, taken by surprise, temporarily succumbs to SHAKESPEARE’S authority. BEESTON places an illustration of a Coronation obelisk on the easel)
BEESTON
(explaining to the audience) …..the City Guilds had built obelisks to greet the new King as he…..
SHAKESPEARE (interrupting BEESTON)
…..to me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight….
(SHAKESPEARE snaps his fingers at BEESTON again who places the illustration of the obelisk from Rome on the easel)
BEESTON
Will’s love for Harry was like the obelisk in Rome. It was….
SHAKESPEARE
(interrupting BEESTON again) ….builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th’inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers…
To this I witness call the fools of time……
(SHAKESPEARE himself summons up the SPIRITS OF THE MARTYRS. They enter from the shadows, covered in blood and wearing halters round their necks. They walk, zombie-like, with a heavy drum-beat, towards the audience)
BEESTON
(Explaining to the audience, in terror and awe, as the MARTYRS advance)
….the Catholic martyrs slaughtered by Queen Elizabeth…..
SHAKESPEARE
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime…
(SHAKESPEARE orders the drumming to stop. He crosses himself and kneels. The MARTYRS cross themselves and kneel. BEESTON, carried away, crosses himself and kneels. SILENCE. TABLEAU. BEESTON suddenly comes to his senses)
BEESTON
What the…(He grabs his alchemical staff and attacks SHAKESPEARE and the other SPIRITS) Off! Off! Off!
(The SPIRITS flee. Then BEESTON, calm again continues…)
BEESTON
A year after the Coronation, Harry’s wife, Countess Elizabeth, gave birth to a baby. She’d given birth to girls before. But this time it was a boy. Harry now had a son to impress. Will, the actor, had to go….
TO READ EPISODE EIGHT, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.
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