The TRAGEDIANS have come forward, wide awake.
GUIL: Good. Year of your birth. Double it. Even numbers I win, odd numbers I lose. Silence.
An awful sigh as the TRAGEDIANS realize that any number doubled is even. Then a terrible row as they object. Then a terrible silence.
PLAYER: We have no money. GUIL turns to him.
GUIL: Ah. Then what have you got?
The PLAYER silently brings ALFRED forward. GUIL regards ALFRED sadly.
Was it for this?
PLAYER: It's the best we've got.
GUIL ( looking up and around): Then the times are bad indeed.
The PLAYER starts to speak, protestation, but GUIL turns on him viciously.
The very air stinks.
The PLAYER moves back. GUIL moves down to the footlights and turns.
Come here, Alfred.
ALFRED moves down and stands, frightened and small.
( Gently. ) Do you lose often?
ALFRED: Yes, Sir.
GUIL: Then what could you have left to lose?
ALFRED: Nothing, sir.
Pause. GUIL regards him.
GUIL: Do you like being... an actor?
ALFRED: No, sir.
GUIL looks around, at the audience.
GUIL: You and I, Alfred---we could create a dramatic precedent here.
And ALFRED , who has been near tears, starts to sniffle.
Come, come, Alfred, this is no way to fill the theatres of Europe.
The PLAYER has moved down, GUIL cuts him oft again.
( Viciously. ) Do you know any good plays?
to remonstrate with ALFRED .
PLAYER: Plays?
ROS ( Coming forward, faltering Shyly): Exhibitions...
GUIL: I thought you said you were actors.
PLAYER ( dawning): Oh. Oh well, we are. We are. But there hasn't been much call GUIL: You lost. Well then --- one of the Greeks, perhaps? You're familiar with the tragedies of antiquity, are you? The great homicidal classics? Matri, patri, fratri, sorrori, uxori and it goes without saying
ROS: Saucy--- --Suicidal-hm? Maidens aspiring to godheads
ROS: And vice versa
GUIL: Your kind of thing, is it?
PLAYER: Well, no, I can't say it is, really. We're more of the blood, love and rhetoric school.
GUIL: Well, I'll leave the choice to you, if there is anything to choose between them.
PLAYER: They're hardly divisible, sir---well, I can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can't do you love and rhetoric without the blood.
Blood is compulsory---they' all blood, you see.
GUIL: Is that what people want?
PLAYER: It's what we do. ( Small pause. He turns away. )
GUIL touches ALFRED On the shoulder.
GUIL: ( wry, gentle): Thank you; we'll let you know.
The PLAYER has moved upstage. ALFRED follows.
PLAYER ( to TRAGEDIANS): Thirty-eight!
ROS ( moving across, fascinated and hopeful): Position?
PLAYER: Sir?
ROS: One of your--- tableaux?
PLAYER: No, sir.
ROS: Oh.
PLAYER ( to the TRAGEDIANS now departing with their cart, air taking various props off it): Entrances there and there ( indicating upstage).
The PLAYER has not moved his position for his last four lines. He does not move now.
GUIL waits.
GUIL: Well... aren't you going to change into your costume?
PLAYER: I never change out of it, sir.
GUIL: Always in character.
PLAYER: That's it.
Pause.
GUIL: Aren't you going to-come on?
PLAYER: I am on.
GUIL: But if you are on, you Can't Come On. Can you?
PLAYER: I start on.
GUIL: But it hasn't started. Go on. Well look out for you.
PLAYER: I'll give you a wave.
He does not move. His immobility is now pointed, and getting awkward. Pause. ROS
walks tip to him till they are face to face.
ROS: Excuse me.
Pause. The PLAYER lifts his downstage foot. It was covering GUIL 'S Coin. ROS puts his foot on the coin. Smiles.
Thank you.
The PLAYER turns and goes. ROS has bent for the coin.
GUIL ( Moving out): Come On.
ROS: I say---that was lucky.
GUIL ( turning): What?
ROS: It was tails.
He tosses the coin to GUIL who catches It. Simultaneously a lighting change sufficient to alter the exterior mood into interior, but nothing violent. And OPHELIA
