(Everyone has finally returned to their seats, placing away their pickaxes, shovels, or assorted mob weapons. Either way, they're happy that Janos was knocked out and got what he deserved, or so all said. Anamae grabbed Rahab, Ariel and Malek; the Sarafan Paladin was poking the Ancient with his spear just to make sure that he was down and nothing suprising would happen. Oh, only if Malek knew.)
Anamae: Okay Malek, you come in with Friar Lawrence and blab about how happy you are that Ariel is going to be your wife.
Malek: I don't want her for my wife.
Anamae: No, what I mean-
Ariel: Are you saying I wouldn't make a good wife?
Malek: You don't even have half a face!
Ariel: (Her eye watering) Kain!!!!!!!
(Kain comes storming in, knocking Malek upside the head, then vanishes back to his dressing room to look himself over once again.)
Rahab: Continue, directress.
Anamae: And anyway Malek, I want you to act almost lovey-dovey towards Juliet when she comes in. Ariel, you act cold as always and Rahab, since you already know everything that's happening I want you to act like you're all pained and angsty...*looks at Rahab* which can't be too hard for you.
Rahab: How long until I become the poisoner?
Ariel: Don't worry Rahab, not for a while yet.
Malek: I think Ariel might hold it against you personally when you do kill her!
Ariel: Malek!
Rahab: (Begins to cry) Ariel, I don't mean to kill you!!!!
Anamae: Shut up!!! Malek, get into your ruffled collar and take off your damn helm and go out there and look...oh yeah I forgot that you're only an animated suit of armour. *Laughs at the seething look Malek gives her* Well, get the ruffled collar on anyways.
(Malek gets the ruffled collar on that somehow manages to choke him even if he doesn't have a neck to speak of. Anamae shoves Rahab into the centre of the stage with the backdrop that of the Drowned Abbey, then runs backstage again and gives the signal for the curtain to rise. In the audience, where Sebastian was telling everyone the time Kain got drunk and went on a strip tease, was immediatly silenced by a couple of people with pea shooters and made to sit back down and watch the beginning of the fourth act.)
(Rahab is standing in the middle of the Abbey, near the altar and Malek enters from the left wing. The Sarafan cheer for their commander, then wonder why he has to wear a silly ass frilly collar around his non-exsitant neck.)
Rahab: On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.
Malek: (Looking at Rahab and trying to get the collar off) My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste
Rahab:You say you do not know the lady's mind:
Uneven is the course, I like it not. (Leans over to Malek) Leave the collar alone!
Malek: Make me!!! (Frantically tries to take it off, then begins to choke) Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
And therefore have I little talk'd of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway,
And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society:
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
(So while Malek is talking and choking at the same time, Anamae is bashing her head backstage with the help of Turel. Vorador is snickering quietly to himself as Malek falls down on one knee and groans when Rahab helps him take off the collar. The vampire lieutenant tosses it into the crowd, where it is grabbed as a souviner by a Malek fangirl...yes, they do exist.)
Rahab: Malek, you okay?
Malek: (Wheezing) It will...pass. Continue...the story.
Rahab:(Trying to look sad after what has happened) I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
(Ariel comes in from the right wing; people begin to clap and cheer for Juliet, encouraging the girl to keep on truckin' as the Elder God stated.)
Malek: (Rising to embrace Ariel; then passes right through her) Happily met, my lady and my wife!
Ariel: (Looking at him coldly) That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Malek: That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.
Ariel: What must be shall be.
(On the balcony)
Sarafan Lord: Well, that was a cold brush off.
Keeves the Bulter: Well, Milord if she does not love him but is forced to marry him, then she will make every moment a living hell for him.
Sarafan Lord: Reminds me why I never married.
Keeves the Bulter: Yes, Milord.
(Back onsatge)
Rahab: That's a certain text.
Malek: Come you to make confession to this father?
Ariel: (Turns her head away) To answer that, I should confess to you.
Malek: Do not deny to him that you love me.
Ariel: I will confess to you that I love him.
Rahab: You love me, Ariel?
Ariel: No, it's in the script, Rahab!
Rahab: ...oh.
Malek: Getting back to the script, people!!
Rahab: Fine.
Malek: So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
Ariel: If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.
Audience: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Malek: Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.
Ariel: The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.
Malek: Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.
Ariel: That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
(Backstage)
Turel: What the hell does spake mean?
Melchiah: I think it's the same as speak only you mess around with the k and the e.
Turel: Shakespeake must have been on drugs when he was making this.
Umah: Research has shown that he did take drugs, Turel.
Turel: ...oh.
(Onstage)
Malek: (Rising his hand as if to slap Ariel; a tomato comes flying through the air and hits the paladin. When looking for the culprit, everyone is rather suprised to see it was Moebius who threw the offending piece of vegetable.) Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.
Ariel: (Looks at Rahab) It may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
Rahab: My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
Malek: (Rolls his eyes) God shield I should disturb devotion!
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
(Malek leans over and tries to kiss Ariel, but another piece of fruit, this time an orange tossed by Mortanius hits the paladin on his back. Controlling the rage that was sure to come out in a most violent way, Malek leaves the stage, goes into the curtains, doesn't look where he's going and gets hit by a low boom that was there for one reason or another.)
Ariel: O shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!
Rahab: Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits:
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this county. (Mutters under his breath) As accident prone as he is.
Ariel: Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,
Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.
Rahab: (Nods his head sagely even if he didn't understand all the words.) Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution.
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That copest with death himself to scape from it:
And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.
Ariel: O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.
Rahab: Don't go overboard, Ariel. (Thinking to himself) And this is where it all begins! The tradegy that will unfold, how I began this horrible act of death that will only be rightened in the end because two lovers die, that they have no hope of-
Ariel: Rahab.
Rahab: What?
Ariel: Sorry to interfer with your thinking, but you need to get on with your lines. Juliet wants to die by poison, so you have to come and say the next lines, then we can continue.
Rahab: All right. Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, deprived of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:
Then, as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come: and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame;
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
(In the audience)
Nupraptor: Damn, that was long. Really long.
Moebius: 5 minutes and 47 seconds.
Mortanius: Stop timing that; it's already three chapters old.
Dejoule: Shush. Now the play is getting intresting!!
(Back Onstage)
Ariel: (Looking morbidly happy) Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!
Rahab: Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.
Ariel: Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.Farewell, dear father!
(The curtain falls. Rahab sighs and wipes the sweat from his brow, then looks up to see Zephon grinning down on him.)
Zephon: Poisoner.
(With that single word, Zephon left Rahab, who was now once again having the crisis in his mind. Ariel went off to see Kain while Anamae snapped her fingers importantly as the props were being moved around.)
Anamae: Rahab, you okay? (Looks at the now shaking vampire)
Rahab: Poisoner...friar...Jekell and Hyde...
Anamae: Crap. Someone get him off the stage. (Looks at her clipboard) Vorador, get over here!
Vorador: What?
Anamae: Now it's suppose to be Capulet in the next scene, who was Janos but since your father is now knocked out, you will play his part besides Melchiah. Zephon will be in the scene as well, and two serving men, who will be.....(looks at the cast behind her; selects two Glyph guards) them!
Vorador: Do I have to change costume?
Anamae: What do you think?
Anamae: Okay Malek, you come in with Friar Lawrence and blab about how happy you are that Ariel is going to be your wife.
Malek: I don't want her for my wife.
Anamae: No, what I mean-
Ariel: Are you saying I wouldn't make a good wife?
Malek: You don't even have half a face!
Ariel: (Her eye watering) Kain!!!!!!!
(Kain comes storming in, knocking Malek upside the head, then vanishes back to his dressing room to look himself over once again.)
Rahab: Continue, directress.
Anamae: And anyway Malek, I want you to act almost lovey-dovey towards Juliet when she comes in. Ariel, you act cold as always and Rahab, since you already know everything that's happening I want you to act like you're all pained and angsty...*looks at Rahab* which can't be too hard for you.
Rahab: How long until I become the poisoner?
Ariel: Don't worry Rahab, not for a while yet.
Malek: I think Ariel might hold it against you personally when you do kill her!
Ariel: Malek!
Rahab: (Begins to cry) Ariel, I don't mean to kill you!!!!
Anamae: Shut up!!! Malek, get into your ruffled collar and take off your damn helm and go out there and look...oh yeah I forgot that you're only an animated suit of armour. *Laughs at the seething look Malek gives her* Well, get the ruffled collar on anyways.
(Malek gets the ruffled collar on that somehow manages to choke him even if he doesn't have a neck to speak of. Anamae shoves Rahab into the centre of the stage with the backdrop that of the Drowned Abbey, then runs backstage again and gives the signal for the curtain to rise. In the audience, where Sebastian was telling everyone the time Kain got drunk and went on a strip tease, was immediatly silenced by a couple of people with pea shooters and made to sit back down and watch the beginning of the fourth act.)
(Rahab is standing in the middle of the Abbey, near the altar and Malek enters from the left wing. The Sarafan cheer for their commander, then wonder why he has to wear a silly ass frilly collar around his non-exsitant neck.)
Rahab: On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.
Malek: (Looking at Rahab and trying to get the collar off) My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste
Rahab:You say you do not know the lady's mind:
Uneven is the course, I like it not. (Leans over to Malek) Leave the collar alone!
Malek: Make me!!! (Frantically tries to take it off, then begins to choke) Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
And therefore have I little talk'd of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway,
And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society:
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
(So while Malek is talking and choking at the same time, Anamae is bashing her head backstage with the help of Turel. Vorador is snickering quietly to himself as Malek falls down on one knee and groans when Rahab helps him take off the collar. The vampire lieutenant tosses it into the crowd, where it is grabbed as a souviner by a Malek fangirl...yes, they do exist.)
Rahab: Malek, you okay?
Malek: (Wheezing) It will...pass. Continue...the story.
Rahab:(Trying to look sad after what has happened) I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
(Ariel comes in from the right wing; people begin to clap and cheer for Juliet, encouraging the girl to keep on truckin' as the Elder God stated.)
Malek: (Rising to embrace Ariel; then passes right through her) Happily met, my lady and my wife!
Ariel: (Looking at him coldly) That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Malek: That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.
Ariel: What must be shall be.
(On the balcony)
Sarafan Lord: Well, that was a cold brush off.
Keeves the Bulter: Well, Milord if she does not love him but is forced to marry him, then she will make every moment a living hell for him.
Sarafan Lord: Reminds me why I never married.
Keeves the Bulter: Yes, Milord.
(Back onsatge)
Rahab: That's a certain text.
Malek: Come you to make confession to this father?
Ariel: (Turns her head away) To answer that, I should confess to you.
Malek: Do not deny to him that you love me.
Ariel: I will confess to you that I love him.
Rahab: You love me, Ariel?
Ariel: No, it's in the script, Rahab!
Rahab: ...oh.
Malek: Getting back to the script, people!!
Rahab: Fine.
Malek: So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
Ariel: If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.
Audience: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Malek: Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.
Ariel: The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.
Malek: Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.
Ariel: That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
(Backstage)
Turel: What the hell does spake mean?
Melchiah: I think it's the same as speak only you mess around with the k and the e.
Turel: Shakespeake must have been on drugs when he was making this.
Umah: Research has shown that he did take drugs, Turel.
Turel: ...oh.
(Onstage)
Malek: (Rising his hand as if to slap Ariel; a tomato comes flying through the air and hits the paladin. When looking for the culprit, everyone is rather suprised to see it was Moebius who threw the offending piece of vegetable.) Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.
Ariel: (Looks at Rahab) It may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
Rahab: My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
Malek: (Rolls his eyes) God shield I should disturb devotion!
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
(Malek leans over and tries to kiss Ariel, but another piece of fruit, this time an orange tossed by Mortanius hits the paladin on his back. Controlling the rage that was sure to come out in a most violent way, Malek leaves the stage, goes into the curtains, doesn't look where he's going and gets hit by a low boom that was there for one reason or another.)
Ariel: O shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!
Rahab: Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits:
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this county. (Mutters under his breath) As accident prone as he is.
Ariel: Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,
Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.
Rahab: (Nods his head sagely even if he didn't understand all the words.) Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution.
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That copest with death himself to scape from it:
And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.
Ariel: O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.
Rahab: Don't go overboard, Ariel. (Thinking to himself) And this is where it all begins! The tradegy that will unfold, how I began this horrible act of death that will only be rightened in the end because two lovers die, that they have no hope of-
Ariel: Rahab.
Rahab: What?
Ariel: Sorry to interfer with your thinking, but you need to get on with your lines. Juliet wants to die by poison, so you have to come and say the next lines, then we can continue.
Rahab: All right. Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, deprived of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:
Then, as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come: and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame;
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
(In the audience)
Nupraptor: Damn, that was long. Really long.
Moebius: 5 minutes and 47 seconds.
Mortanius: Stop timing that; it's already three chapters old.
Dejoule: Shush. Now the play is getting intresting!!
(Back Onstage)
Ariel: (Looking morbidly happy) Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!
Rahab: Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.
Ariel: Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.Farewell, dear father!
(The curtain falls. Rahab sighs and wipes the sweat from his brow, then looks up to see Zephon grinning down on him.)
Zephon: Poisoner.
(With that single word, Zephon left Rahab, who was now once again having the crisis in his mind. Ariel went off to see Kain while Anamae snapped her fingers importantly as the props were being moved around.)
Anamae: Rahab, you okay? (Looks at the now shaking vampire)
Rahab: Poisoner...friar...Jekell and Hyde...
Anamae: Crap. Someone get him off the stage. (Looks at her clipboard) Vorador, get over here!
Vorador: What?
Anamae: Now it's suppose to be Capulet in the next scene, who was Janos but since your father is now knocked out, you will play his part besides Melchiah. Zephon will be in the scene as well, and two serving men, who will be.....(looks at the cast behind her; selects two Glyph guards) them!
Vorador: Do I have to change costume?
Anamae: What do you think?