You can tell me.
The thorny
The crazy
The dark truth
I have heard many of this sort of thing
I will listen
I won’t judge (if you tell me in earnest or suffering or pain)
Honest words are received and respected
I will not advise
Not unless you ask me to.
I will receive
I can receive.
What is’t?
Claudius
You told us of some suit.
Betty told me a story about a suit, sent through the mail.
It was a suit for her husband, I think.
He was working in Burma.
She sent it from England and somehow
This suit
Traveled around the world
Through the post and she couldn’t get it back
Nor could she get it to him.
The suit became as well traveled as the Italian woman
Who sent it and the Eritrean man for whom it was intended.
She told me this story
When I first moved to England
Before her husband died there in Burma
Before she had to fight to get his body returned to her in England
Before the sending and receiving Became the nightmare that it became.
This was before his coffin finally made its way to Heathrow
Before it pulled up in front of her house
Before the choir of women wailed behind the hearse,
Making the most heartbreaking sound.
This was before he found his final resting place
In the ground of his native Eritrea.
I wish I could remember the story of the suit more clearly.
I wish I could remember where it ended up
How it finished its journey.
And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
Hey man
What’s up?
How’s it hangin’, brother?
I’m down with the kids, yo.
I speak their lingo, you know.
Give me your hand.
We’ll do one of those complicated handshakes
That all the young people are into
Hand, fingers, elbow, etc.
I got it.
Don’t think of me as your boss;
Just one of you,
You know – a man of the street,
Of the people.
Heartily farewell.
Merrily hello.
Reluctantly wait a sec.
Disparagingly You didn’t know?
Respectfully Repeat that.
Dismissively never mind.
Wonderingly well.
Awkwardly later.
Whisperingly Take Care.
We doubt it nothing.
I think he’s saying, “I don’t doubt you” or “I trust you” or “I have faith in you.”
It’s a funny way to say it.
I guess that’s the thing about a king in an uneasy crown;
It hasn’t quite settled on his head
So he has to manipulate his words
Into funny shapes
Make ‘em a little high falutin’.
In other words, only vaguely make sense.
To obscure your speech
Make it a little less plain
Rearrange it so it only has the appearance of sense.
All four of these words are easy and the meaning is in there but when examined closely
. . . huh?
Farewell; and let your haste command your duty.
Speed has been my master
Hurry: my boss.
In its service, I have sacrificed
Self, health and love.
Study this: the study with the clergymen
Who were encountered in an alley
By a man who needed help.
The only consistent factor that prevented them from helping
Was if they were in a hurry.
So our kindness depends on our watches and the world gets
Faster and faster and we stop
To help less and less.
Haste commands us.
Giving to you no further personal power To business with the king, more than the scope Of these delated articles allow.
What license would Cornelius and Voltemand have had?
What personal power do they normally command?
Why make the public limitation?
The rebel in me constrains against
This limitation of these two minor characters personal power.
I want to empower them
Send them over borders to charm the Norwegians.
I picture a bridle of rules and regulations
That they have to strain against;
The saddle tight and chafing,
The bit, bitter and blood-like,
All made of paper
Of bureaucratic restriction.
Voltemand and Cornelius have only to follow the instructions
On this missive
That is their one charge.
Are they ambassadors?
If so, why have they become simple messengers?
Strap a bag on them
Get out a cart
Make them a pony express.
When some administrator hands me a set of tasks,
I buck and kick
But ultimately have to lower my head and accept the bridle,
The bit,
The saddle and
The whip.
And we here dispatch You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand, For bearers of this greeting to old Norway.
Oh, so, Cornelius is good, huh?
Good Cornelius and that good for nothing Voltemand?
Jackass Voltemand?
Cornelius is a brownnoser, I’ll tell you what –
Always sucking up and bowing and scraping
Good Cornelius won’t share, though –
If he had a cookie, he wouldn’t give you a bite. Not unless it’d get him something.
Oh good. Cornelius.
Can’t wait to take a trip with that ass-wipe.
And to Norway, no less.
Guess I’ll be buying all my own lox.
Thus much the business is: we have here writ To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,– Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears Of this his nephew’s purpose,–to suppress His further gait herein; in that the levies, The lists and full proportions, are all made Out of his subject.
The old men
Write to each other
From their beds –
Requesting that their young whipper snapper relatives
Be kept in line.
Please tell your impetuous son to get off my lawn.
Get your nephew to stop playing baseball in my yard.
Drag your feeble old bones out of your bed
Get your young people in line –
Don’t you know what he’s up to?
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.
Let’s gather ourself together now
Call a meeting
Get us all in one place
See who is here
There is first, he who called the meeting –
The organizer, the Leader – capital L
Who calls for order, order, order.
Right behind him, his second
Who will slap you into place
Stick a cane in your back to get you to stand
Upright and swat your hands if you reach for the offered refreshments.
There is the shy child
Sneaking in behind its mothers skirts
Placing only her eyes on the table.
There’s the jester in her motley
Making loud farting noises and inappropriate jokes
Walking behind the teacher
Who strides ever forward
Pretending not to hear.
The Broadway star swoops in,
Her cape swirling behind her
Eddying in her expansive wake.
We just keep arriving
There are more and more.
If we wait for everyone to arrive
will the time to start ever begin?
The Hamlet Project 