Star Crossed Lovers Upstart Crow

HEN CLUCKS

"Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?"

Sorry, Dad. How old's this sad weirdo supposed to be?

The maid be 13, my sweet.

Yeah, cos I'm 13.

Exactly.

I thought it might be fun to hear my Juliet spoke in her true voice

before a middle-aged man with two half-coconuts down his bodice

gets hold of it.

I don't say stuff like this, Dad.

I'd sound like a complete turnip!

Yes, dear.

'Tis thy sweet and useful timbre I would feign here,

not the monosyllabic series of grunts that passes for your conversation.

Oh, what?!

GRUNTS

I take the view that having my romantic ingenue say,

"Uhh, what, shut up, Romeo, you're so weird, uhh, shut up, I hate you,"

would be slightly less effective than mine own timeless poetry.

Timeless is the word,

as in "feels like goes on for bloody ever".

You've never given it a chance.

You've only seen Henry VI, Part 1.

Part 1? What, you mean there's more?!

I mean, don't take this wrong way, son, but, God, I was bored!

I thought I was actually outside my own body watching meself die.

He sat there cracking his nuts in the quiet bits.

I tried to shush him, but he would not be shushed.

He's a stubborn man, your father, William. A stubborn, common man.

Which is why you married me. Posh birds love a bit of rough.

I married beneath me, and now you've done the same, William.

And what's that supposed to mean?

It means that he was 17

and he got a scheming little 26-year-old tithe farm milking-slap

up the duffington, that's what!

Oh, you think you're so posh, Mary Arden.

Like you ain't sewn into your winter knickers like everybody else.

I'm trying to work!

I've come from London to hear Sue read my Juliet.

Well, I'm not happy, doll.

Burbage pays you as an actor, not a writer.

It's fine. I've sent word to the theatre

that the two tunnels which lie beneath the bridge be blocked.

Pardon?

The two tunnels which lie beneath the bridge be blocked.

Two tunnels?

Beneath a bridge? Anyone?

Nose, my loves. Nose!

I've told Burbage that my nose be snotted and I would not work this week or next.

Why didn't you just say "nose"?

It's what I do!

Now, Susanna, again.

All right, if I have to.

"Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?"

Dad, nobody talks like this!

It's poetry.

Sometimes I regret teaching you to read.

I do think it could be a little less flowery, love.

I mean, why doesn't she just say, "Where are you, Romeo?"

Because, my love, it doesn't mean, "Where are you?"

It means, "Why are you Romeo?"

That's a bit weird.

Yeah. Romeo is just his name.

Well, exactly.

Juliet is saying, "Why are you a member of a family that I hate?"

People will definitely think you mean, "Romeo, where are you?"

That's what I thought it meant.

Yeah. I did, too.

It's bloody obvious.

I think, to be clear, you're going to have to have Juliet say,

"Romeo, Romeo! Why are you called Romeo?"

"A member of a family that I hate?"

That'd do it. Although if I was being really picky,

Romeo is just his Christian name, isn't it? And that's not the issue.

It's his surname that's the problem.

Well, yes. Actually, I was sort of hoping people wouldn't notice that.

I think they might. Duh!

So you think she should say,

"Montague, Montague! Wherefore art thou Montague?"

No. Cos that'd sound like she's lost her cat.

Look, it's...probably best if you leave this to me, my love.

I'm-I'm on a bit of a roll.

I'm particularly pleased with the comedy scene where a group of rival serving men

exchange a series of increasingly obscure insults.

Will, I've told you. Don't do comedy.

It's not your strong point.

It is my strong point, wife.

It's just requires lengthy explanation and copious footnotes.

If... If you do your research,

my stuff is actually really funny.

So excited to hear about Mr Shakespeare's teen romance.

Such a good idea for a story.

Yeah, it's all right, I suppose.

Better than his usual stuff.

Has he let slip any hints about the romance plot?

Er, this lad falls in love with this lass,

and she falls in love with him...

and they live happily ever after.

Nice and short, which makes a change from his Henrys.

And an amazing part for a girl. Kate,

you've got to drop that. Just cos your mum rents rooms to my master

don't mean he's going to put you in one of his plays.

It just seems so unfair that the theatre employs men to perform female roles

when I, a real woman, am ready and eager.

Ah, Kate, splendid!

Store these new pages in my bureau, would you? And, Bottom,

bring ale and pie.

A "good morrow" would be nice.

I'm famished!

The coach promised a refreshment cart, but, oh, not on this particular service,

you'll be stunned to hear(!)

I hate it when they do that.

Plus, they were filling ruts 'twixt Stokenchurch and Chipping Norton

and had laid on replacement donkeys.

In fact, one donkey for six of us, plus bags.

Of course, the snortish brute guffed its last after but three furlongs

and they had to send for another from Birmingham.

We spent two nights in a hedge.

And did we see a single rut being filled?

Oh, no, I was forgetting! This is England.

One wouldst more likely see a toothless crone with a tooth

than an English rut-filler actually filling a rut!

Fortunately, I had my quill and ink and was able to make passing use of the time.

Oh, my God, Mr Shakespeare, it's brilliant.

Timeless. Deathless!

"The Most Tragical History Of Romeo And Julian."

Oh, yes...

That should be Juliet, obviously. Romeo And Julian was but a working title.

Early exploratory stuff. It meanteth nothing.

Yeah, right(!)

What? Well, come on, master.

We live in t'same house.

I've heard you reading out your sonnets.

Especially 1 to 126.

Those poems are about a platonic hierarchical relationship.

God's naughty etchings!

Why does everybody presume

that just because I write 126 love poems to an attractive boy,

I must be...

..I must be some kind of bechambered hugger-tugger.

Juliet is an utterly amazing part.

Yes, I really think I've got her voice.

You have, you have. She's perfect.

The real challenge will be to find an actor to do her justice.

Master Condell was quite brilliant as Queen Margaret in my Henrys.

But I fear he'd be too old to play the ingenue.

On the other hand, I don't want a boy.

These downy-scrotumed squeakers lack depth.

Ahem.

Pardon, Kate?

Leaping amphibian caught in the ruby pipe

which starts with a swallow but knows naught of birds.

Pardon?

I think he means, have you got a frog in your throat?

But you can never be sure with him.

KNOCK AT DOOR

I'll get it.

As if anyone else was ever going to!

Yes, Bottom. Or, alternatively, I could get it and you could write a play

and use the money you earn to pay me.

Except, hang on, no, that wouldn't work, because you can't read or write.

So perhaps our current distribution of labour is the sensible and equitable one.

That's just mean, that is.

Ahem.

What?

I was hinting that the answer to your Juliet dilemma could be...

Oh, Kate, don't go there.

Lady-acting is illegal.

Beside which, girls can't act.

Just as they cannot practise law, cure the sick,

handle financial matters or stand for any office.

But no woman has ever been allowed to try any of those things.

Because they can't do them!

God's bodikins, Kate, what's not to get?

Now, please, forget this nonsense and let me focus.

It's not Juliet I'm worried about, it's Romeo.

I can't seem to get a handle on him.

His character eludes me.

Master Robert Greene is without.

Rob Greene...

who doth hate my gutlings?

What does he want?

Ahh...

Master Shaky Poet!

A word, if you please.

Shakespeare, Master Greene. My name is Shakespeare.

I know your name, sirrah.

I was addressing you by trade.

Shaky Poet.

Just as I would address a house-builder as Master Builder

or a ship's carpenter as Master Carpenter.

What would you call a bear-baiter, Mr Greene?

Master Baiter.

See what I did there? Brilliant. Loved it.

I am come on a mission of great delicacy.

My nephew, Florian Greene, has fallen for a most unsuitable girl -

the Lady Rosaline, daughter of a mere country knight.

There can of course be no question of such a lowly match,

so the boy must be kept from her.

And what part of this unedifying tale of upper-class entitlement

is of interest to me?

Florian travels to Cambridge next week to take his place at the university.

You must keep him here till then.

You see, this lowly boarding house is far from court.

And Miss Rosaline will never find him here.

I am a busy writer, sirrah. Why should I do this?

Because I am Master of the Queen's Revels,

and if you don't, I will deny your plays licence.

You mean you're corruptly using your public position

to further your own private interests?

Er, duh!

I will have the boy sent to you this e'en bound tight,

for his blood runs hot.

I myself will return in a week for a farewell dinner.

Good day.

Zounds! I am due at the theatre to discuss my new romance,

but now must play nursey-nursey wipey-nosey

to a rogering, roistering student clodhopper!

And all because Robert Greene be made Master of Revels.

Why be he Master of Revels?

What qualifies him to be my judge?

He's posh and he went to Cambridge.

Exactly.

His very birth did guarantee him advancement

whilst mine precluded it.

It is almost as if there be suspended over this scepter'd isle

a ceiling made of glass...

..against which men of lower birth, such as I, must always bonk our noggins.

D'you think that's why you're going a bit bald?

I am not going bloody bald.

I have a very big brain.

Mr Burbage, I am the senior actor of female roles in this company.

My dear Condell, the ingenue in Master Shakespeare's promised play

is a maid of 13 summers,

a young bud scarce yet in bloom.

And your point?

I think it seeks an actor that doesn't have to shave his ears.

Good morrow! Good morrow, all.

Don't you "good morrow" me, Mr Shakespeare.

This new romance you're writing...

Aye. Romeo And Julian. Juliet.

As I said.

Romeo And Juliet.

Burbage says you want me to play some bloody nanny.

The nurse is a fine comedy role.

Oh! Comedy. Ooh!

Don't give it to him, then.

I can do comedy. Yeah...

But only in London, yeah? Not really Florence, is it?

Yes, we all know you worked in Italy, Kempe.

Ooh, did I get an award?

Can't remember.

Oh, that's right, I did. Yeah. A proper one.

Not English. Italian, yeah?

Commedia dell'arte. Mm!

Heard of it?

Since you became big in Italy, Kempe, an insufferable smuglington hast thou become!

Yeah, but an insufferable smuglington who's big in Italy.

I am the senior lady actor and I insist on playing Juliet!

Look, the play isn't even finished.

I'm stuck on the character of my Romeo.

And what's more, as yet I don't have an ending.

Surely our young lovers will live happily ever after.

Hmm. Well, that's the obvious ending.

Yes.

The ending the crowd will want.

Yes.

So I thought I'd kill them instead.

Kill them?

Our teenage sweethearts?

Yes. Theatre should be challenging.

And entertaining.

Mainly challenging. Oh!

I just need to work out a decent double death plot.

I can do dying! I'm good at dying.

Hmm, yeah!

On stage every night. Oh!

Who said that? Oh, I did, so...

Mr Shakespeare, I need this role.

I can woo Romeo. I know I can.

Let me show you. Find a way for me to prove it.

Bit sad, though. Begging.

GRUNTING: We've had a delivery!

Lock up the beef and ale, Bottom. Tell the poor to bar their doors.

We unleash the most parasitic creature in Christendom...

the English posh boy.

Stay your hand a moment, Bottom. Have you your dagger handy?

Do you think he's dangerous?

Possibly. These Oxbridge yobbos are extraordinarily strong,

having spent their entire lives with literarily enough to eat.

They join clubs called the Burst Ballsack and the Fisted Peasant...

..where they gorge and fight and roger and quaff

till they coat the walls with gut porridge.

A bit jealous, are we? Bloody jealous!

Particularly as when they graduate, they all get to be bishops and ambassadors

and members of the privy council.

In England, I'm afraid it's not what you know,

it's what dead farmyard animals you rogered at university!

We can put it off no longer.

Unleash the posh boy!

Rosaline...

Rosaline!

Wherefore art thou Rosaline?

Goodness. This is spooky.

He's asking why his beloved's name is Rosaline.

Actually, I think he's asking where Rosaline is.

Probably best to leave the linguistic interpretation to me.

Where are you, Rosaline?

Where are you?

I wish I knew where you were.

Gonna admit I was right?

O brutal love.

Despised love.

Love is the angry thorn upon the false rose, and I...

am a prick.

Blimey, have we got to spend a week with this arse-mungel?

Resist your thuggish interjections, Bottom.

I see in this lovelorn loon the very model of my Romeo.

O thou rude and deceiving table!

Four legs hast thou, yet none are Rosaline's.

I would cut off every one and eat upon the floor

for but one glance at Rosaline's sweet knees.

I'm sorry, but this bloke's a total wankington.

You must make allowance for his youth and ardour.

Curse the floor that doth not support Rosaline.

Curse the ceiling that doth not shelter Rosaline.

Curse the bondsman that doth not serve Rosaline.

Well, maybe he's a bit of a wankington.

Sirrah, who are you?

My name is Will Shakespeare, Master Florian.

And I've been charged with keeping you safe till you go to university.

Never.

I will leave this place at once and search the world until I find my Rosaline.

I'm afraid that's out of the question.

Then I will kill myself.

Rosaline, Rosaline! Wherefore art thou Rosaline?

Mr Shakespeare, I've learned one of Juliet's speeches,

and if you'll just let me show you what I...

Kate, I'm really, really busy!

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

"By any other name would smell as sweet."

Not now, Kate! Sorry.

Now, Master Florian, don't be foolish.

You're going to have to put Rosaline out of your mind.

Rosaline?

Who's this foul trollop Rosaline?

Why, your love, I thought.

Kate...

Kate be my love. I will love none but my Kate.

Kate? You... You... You mean, our Kate?

Where she breathes, flowers bloom.

Where she sings, pixies dance.

Her most blowingly flatulent fartle-barfle

be more sweetly scented than all the perfumes of Arabia!

Well, you see, you're wrong there. She's not a bad-looking bird,

but let me tell you, if she leaves one hanging in a room,

you're still chewing on it an hour later.

My Kate doth teach the candles to burn bright.

Kate, Kate!

Zounds! I've got to get some of this stuff down.

He is my Romeo, all right.

And what a bit of luck, him going all diddly-doodah over our Kate!

We'd thought to be his jailer

but what better chains to keep him close than those of love?

Mr Shakespeare...

Something quite interesting has just happened.

Yes, I know, Kate. Master Florian has taken a shine to you.

Just string him along for a week, will you?

Let him sing beneath your balcony, write you sonnets, that sort of thing.

I'm sure it's nothing serious.

It is...

quite serious.

He's asked me to marry him.

Well...

Well, that's very sweet...

Marry?!

He can't marry you!

Robert Greene thought Rosaline not good enough for his precious Florian

and she be the daughter of a knight.

Your mum washes my puffling pants!

Yes, but 'tis not Robert Greene who would marry me.

'Tis Florian.

And when he does, my station will be somewhat elevated...

considerably, I might add,

above you own.

But...but, Kate, if you marry Florian, his uncle will blame me

and never license another of my plays.

Hmm! It's not my problem, though, is it?

Particularly since you won't let me play Juliet, even though I'd be brilliant,

and it's my dream. HE SIGHS

But, Kate, you know very well that it is illegal

for girls to do anything interesting.

Thus...

our only recourse is to marry,

and if we can marry rich, besotted idiots, then...

all the better.

Bottom, we have to stop this marriage.

We must distract the boy! Well, that shouldn't be difficult.

The randy little ponce fancies anything in a skirt.

That's right. Yes, of course.

So...so all we need to do is find someone in a skirt whom he definitely can't marry.

Oh, my God, it's so obvious!

Woo-hoo, masters!

See, here I am!

Mistress Sauce Quickly, a shy but biddable young maid,

who is all ripe...

and hot and drippy.

Players!

MUSIC BEGINS

# She that craves her true love's joy

# With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain

# Will do the lot for a handsome boy

# For the maid, she bonketh every day. #

Well, Master Florian? What...

What think you of Mistress Sauce Quickly?

Does she not make

your loins tremble and your codpiece cry, "Woof, woof"?

Are you blind? She looks like a man in a dress!

SIMPERS

Besides, I am spoken for my Kate.

Ah, but Kate be pure and chaste till wed...

while Mistress Sauce Quickly doth promise the lot before dinner.

Not a bad point, actually.

Sweet, good night!

This bud of love by summer's ripening breath

May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

Good night.

Good night!

As sweet repose and rest

Come to thy heart as that within my breast!

Sorry, Mistress Sauce Quickly, that does it. Kate's the one for me.

I shall stand beneath Kate's balcony

and strum my lute!

If that's a figure of speech, don't let the watchman catch you.

Oh, well, in that case, perhaps I'll just play her some music.

GENTLE MUSIC

I should be angry with you for pinching my lines like that.

But you did do them rather well.

The verse is so beautiful.

Look, Kate, crazy as it sounds,

perhaps Juliet would be better played by a girl.

And so...

If I were at some point to try, and I only say "try",

to help you become an actor,

would you prefer that to marrying a pervy posh boy?

Oh, Mr Shakespeare, you know I would! But...

But I am promised now, and that is binding in law.

Well, then, we must come up with a plan to get this boy to give you up.

And I've got a corker.

Even better than a middle-aged man in lipstick?

Yes. Even better than that.

Good e'en, old apothecary.

Good e'en, my master. A dark night for business.

Perhaps thy business be dark also?

Yes, well, I... I suppose it is a bit.

My...friend loves this girl...

I see, my master.

And this "friend" has a spotted cod-dangle and a murky discharge?

Not at all.

You take bat spit and goat snot and rub upon your...

I mean, your friend's...

Apothecary, I be not poxed.

I just need a simple potion that will render a person seemingly dead

but from which they will fully recover at the appropriate moment.

Well, we have Play Dead.

Or else you could buy my own brand of the mixture, which is exactly the same

but half the price.

Hm, I... I think I'll stick to the popular brand, thank you.

I'm happy to pay a little more for the nebulous sense of comfort

that a public brand imbues.

Master Florian!

I come with a message from your true love, Kate.

Why, sirrah, if you speak Kate's words, then you are her mouth.

Er, not really.

And so must I kiss thee.

No, this is not consensual!

Oh! Oh, urgh!

God!

Your breath doth stink like you dine on dung.

Deliver your message and be gone.

Mistress Kate has gone to the local chapel.

Her countenance was dark and wild. I fear some madness is come upon her.

She called for you, master. Hurry lest you be too late.

BIRD CAWS

Right, Kate, you swig the potion, Florian finds you,

thinks you dead and breaks off the engagement.

I can't see how it can possibly go wrong.

Well, to play Juliet...

EXHALES

GATE CREAKS

But soft, he comes!

Oh...

So dark.

I fear my love's not here,

for surely her bright eyes would be a lantern in the gloom.

Knob. Shh!

What's this?

My Kate lies cold.

Does she sleep?

No, she is dead!

Now will he say, "Oh, well, bad luck.

"I'll just have to forget about her and go to Cambridge."

Poisoned.

Dead from poison?

Dead!

"Oh, well, win some, lose some, plenty more totty in Cambridge."

If Kate be dead, then Florian need not live.

Perchance some trace of poison does linger on her lips.

A kiss and I will share her fate.

Blimey.

He's taking it a bit harder than I expected.

And yet no friendly drop remains.

Perchance she did brush her teeth

and then gargle after drinking it.

Thus...

with a dagger I die!

No, no. She-She be not dead!

The potion only made her seem dead. She'll wake up any second!

Bolingbrokes!

He dies.

Now cracks a noble heart!

Good night, sweet idiot.

Thy heart was big,

thy brain...tiny.

Soft! I wake.

Did the plan work?

Did Florian find my still body, think me dead

and depart for Cambridge with a shrug?

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Right, good. Don't panic, we can deal with this.

We just need another brilliant plan.

Welcome, Master Greene,

to young Florian's farewell feast.

Burbage and his company and Mistress Sauce Quickly have joined us

to make of it a merry evening.

Excellent, excellent.

Come, Florian, embrace your uncle!

He looks half dead.

He is, Master Greene. He is.

I did a bit of serious roistering with young Flozza last night.

Buckets of oysters, barrels of ale!

THEY LAUGH

Come, sirrah, your hand.

Good lad.

Cold, stiff, unbending - just as a gentleman should be.

Dinner is served, my masters. Shall we?

So I said to Johnny Heminges - lovely actor, sweet, sweet man...

I said to Johnny, "Have you ever played Gammer Gurton's Needle"?

He said, "I've played Gammer Gurton, ducky, but the needle came from props!"

THEY LAUGH

Brilliant, Burbage!

I always say there's nothing more fascinating

than actors talking about themselves!

Tell us more!

What about Florian? Thou hast not touched thy food.

Posh boys must quaff and gorge whilst others starve.

Can't keep this up much longer. Let's go for it.

Tell me, Florian, have you seen anything of the fair Rosaline

who once you did love so well?

Rosaline? Who is Rosaline?!

You said you loved me! Your Kate!

Kate? Love Kate? Thou said thou didst love me!

Your Mistress Sauce Quickly.

Bravo, lad! I see you've been roistering, as a varsity man should.

And, Master Shakespeare,

it seems you have cured my nephew of all silly notions of romance.

Well, yes, I think you could say we've done that.

Bra-vo.

THUD

But look now, what's this?

Why, he's passed out in his plate. You'd think he was at Cambridge already!

THEY LAUGH

HEN CLUCKS

We took him to Cambridge, where, not surprisingly,

they found him cold, unco-operative

and expecting advancement without effort or talent.

In short, a perfect member of the English Establishment.

Although he will have decomposed long before he graduates,

I imagine he'll get a first.

Amazing tale, husband.

Particularly the bit about the maid drugging herself in a tomb,

only for her young lover to think her dead and killing himself before she wakes up.

Yes.

If only I could think of an ending for my play as easily.