AN: So, we're reading "Macbeth" in English, and I, being the
non-Shakespearean person that I am, got very bored. My mind started to drift
and for some very odd reason, I started thinking about Newsies (I can't imagine
why) and I started putting Newsie characters into the playhere is the
result:
PS: I don't own Newsies (Disney does) and I don't own Macbeth (Shakespeare does
- well his corpse anyway). 'Nough said.
Act I
Scene I -In Central Park, amid thunder and lightning, three newsie witches enter.
Crutchy witch: When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lighting, or in rain?
Mush witch: When the hurlyburly's done,
When the strike's lost and won.
Dutchy witch: That will be ere the set of sun.
Mush witch: Upon the heath.
Dutchy witch: There to meet with David.
A cat meows and a frog croaks.
Mush witch: I come, Graymalkin!
Dutchy witch: Paddock calls: -anon.-
All: Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Newsies walk away, hawking the headlines
Scene II - Newsies' Lodging House: Jack, Boots, Les, and Specs enter, folled by a bleeding newsie.
Jack: What bloody newsie is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.
Boots: This is the sergeant,
Who, like good and hardy newsie, fought
'Gainst my captivity. - Hail, brave friend!
Say to Jack, our noble leader, the knowledge of the Distribution Center,
As thou didst leave it.
Newsie: It shall lower the price!
The wealthy Pulitzer, shall rule us no longer.
For smart David - well he deserves that name -
Disdaining fortune, with his keen mind,
Which he talked out his passge till he fac'd Pulitzer
And ne'er shook hands, nor bad farewell to him.
Jack: O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!
Newsie: Twas quite a fight, but if I may
I should like to eat and rest, till I am replenished
Jack: So well they words become thee as they wounds;
They smack of honor both - Go, get him food.
Exit newsie with random helper
Jack: Who comes here?
Boots: The worthy Bumlets.
Enter Bumlets.
Bumlets: God save you!
Jack: Where did you come from?
Bumlets: From upstairs, where Racetrack has won a poker game!
Jack: Great happiness!
No more shall Cheese (who Race beat) be the Walkin' Brain
Go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet David.
Bumlets: I'll see to it.
Jack: What he hath lost, noble David has won.
Scene III - Central Park, three newsies enter amid thunder and lightning.
Crutchy: Where has thou been, brother?
Mush: Selling papers.
Dutchy: Brother, where thou?
Crutchy: A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munched, and munched, and munched:
Give me, quoth I:
Arouint thee, newsie! the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Jersey gone, master of the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
Mush: I'll give thee a wind.
Crutchy: Thou art kind.
Dutchy: And I another.
Crutcy: I myself have all the other;
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.
I'll drain him dry as a pape.
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang apon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid;
Weary seven nights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:
Though his bark cannont be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look what I have.
Mush: Show me, show me.
Crutchy: Here I have a carrot,
For I have been very hungry.
A call without
Dutchy: A call, a call, David doth come.
All: The weird newsies, hand in hand,
Yellers of the news from land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again, to make up nine: -
Peace! - the charm's wound up.
Enter David and Kid Blink
David: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
Blink: What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants of the earth,
And yet are on it? - Live you or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once his newspaper laying
Upon his skinny lips: - You should be newsies
But your uglyness forbids me to interpret that you are so.
David: Speak if you can; - what are you?
Crutchy: All hail, David! Hail to thee
Walking Mouth!
Mush: All hail, David! Hail to thee
Walking Brain!
Dutchy: All hail, David! That shall be leader hereafter!
Blink: Good newsie, why do you start and seem to
fear
Things that do sound so fair?
Blink looks at Mush, Crutchy, and Dutchy
In the name of truth
Are ye fantastical or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: - to me you speak not;
If you can look into the days ahead,
And say which headlines will sell, and which will not.
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favors nor your hate.
Crutchy: Hail!
Mush: Hail!
Dutchy: Hail!
Crutchy: Lesser than David, and greater.
Mush: Not so happy, yet much happier.
Dutchy: Thou shalt get leaders, though thou be none:
So, all hail, David and Blink!
Crutchy: Blink and David, all hail!
David: Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
I know I am the Walking Mouth,
But how the Walking Brain? The Brain still lives,
A prosperous newsie, and to be leader
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be the Brain. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? Or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you.
The newsies run away.
Blink: The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them: whither are the run to?
David: Into the city; and what seemed corporal
melted
As breath into the wind. - Would they had stayed!
Blink: Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten too many insane papers,
Which takes reason prisoner?
David: Your children shall be leaders.
Blink: You shall be leader
David: And the Walking Brain too; went it not so?
Blink: That is what they said.
Enter Bumlets and Skittery
Bumlets: Jack hath happily recieved, David,
The news of thy success.
Skittery: We are sent to give thee,
From our royal master, thanks;
Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.
Bumlets: And, for the earnest of greater honor,
He bade me, from him, call thee the Walking Brain:
David: But he lives?
Skittery: He was beaten by our own Race
And shall never more carry the banner.
David: [to Blink] Mouth, and Walking Brain:
Do you not hope your children shall be leaders,
When those that gave the Walking Brain to me
Promised no less to them?
[aside] Two truths are told, as happy prologues to the swelling act
Of imperial them. This supernatural soliciting
Cannont be ill; cannot be good; - if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth?
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image makes my hair even worse?
If chance will have me leader, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.
Blink: Look, how he's rapt. New honors come upon
him,
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
But with the aid of use. Worthy David,
We stay upon your leisure.
David: Give me your forgiveness: - my brain was
wrought
With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are registered where everyday I turn
The leaf to read them. - Let us toward the Lodging House.
Come friends.
