Lovers Make Moan

What with the women being ticked off for attempted scene-stealing, the ‘angel’s’ wife being referred to as a silly moo, and Jonathan punching Rinkley in the stomach and making him sick, I should say that this Dream is hardly as Shakespeare intended it, and that Thalia, up there on Mount Olympus, or Parnassus, or wherever she is, must be finding this a better comedy than the one The Bard wrote. All the same, though, I don’t like the sound of that man Rinkley. What he did with Rosamund seems harmless enough, although, as Jonathan pointed out to him, he should have desisted when asked, but to label a man a molester of children isn’t very pretty, is it? I wonder the Yorkes put him up when they had a nine-year-old girl in the house.”

“I think the epithet may have referred to an incident in Rinkley’s past; one that he had hoped was either unknown to the company or forgotten by them. That it was not, may have given him the shock which made him vomit.”

“Anyway, I’m glad Jonathan punched him in the stomach.”

“In the interests of the play it may have been better to punch him there, rather than to have given him a black eye or a broken nose or jaw. Jonathan is the most belligerent of all my relatives. I hoped Deborah would have tamed him by now,” said Dame Beatrice.

“I expect she has, except when she herself is involved,” said Laura. “It was because he’d laughed at Deborah that he got the punch in the stomach.”

Chapter 4

Retractable Blade

“… we will do no harm with our swords.”

« ^ »

You know, old boy,” said Rinkley to Brian Yorke, “that last scene needs all the aid it can get.”

“How can you say that, when it’s got yours?” asked Donald Bourton unpleasantly.

“No need to be sarky, old boy. I wasn’t meaning myself, but the supporting cast.”

“Meaning me, I suppose,” said Susan Hythe. “It might help if you didn’t breathe whisky fumes into my face through the supposed chink in the wall.”

“Not whisky fumes; the ardour of love, dear.”

“We’re all doing our best for you,” said Caroline Frome. “Nobody can make Wall really funny, so it isn’t my fault if I can’t get laughs.”

“You need not try to stick your finger in my eye when you make the chink. It’s wasted, anyway. The audience won’t spot it from the distance they’ll be away from us. As for Robina alternately dropping her dog and her lantern when she’s doing Moonshine, it’s abysmal.”

“Thanks very much!” said Robina Lester. “I’m only trying to back up your own feeble efforts to be funny.”

“The parts in the workmen’s play are meant to be crudely acted,” said her son David, who was Lion.

“Let’s take it through once more,” said Brian Yorke, “and, Susan darling, you fall across Pyramus when you kill yourself. You don’t just lie down in a graceful manner two yards away from him.”

“I should prefer to be further off still,” said Susan.

“And I don’t want that Two-Ton Tessie knocking all the breath out of me,” said Rinkley. “I’ve got a tender stomach.”

“As Mr Bradley found out, bless his heart,” said Robina viciously.

“Anyway, I’ve got a much better idea for that bit,” said Rinkley, ignoring her. “When Thisbe comes in and finds I’ve stabbed myself—incidentally, when are ‘props’ going to produce that sword? We need practice with it.”

“It will be available from tomorrow, I think. It won’t actually be a sword, but a dagger with a retractable blade,” said Marcus Lynn. “It’s very realistic, but quite harmless, of course. It’s a nice-looking thing, an exact replica of a sixteenth-century stiletto.”

“But do we want anything realistic in that particular scene?” asked Susan Hythe. “I thought it had to be completely farcical. What’s wrong with sticking the sword under our armpits? That’s the way it’s always done, I thought.”

“The audience like to see the dagger actually sticking in someone’s chest,” said David Lester.

“Yes, in tragedy plays, but not in comedy.”

“Well, anyway, I hope we can soon have the ‘props’ to practise with,” said Rinkley. “The costumes are one thing, but the ‘props’ are quite another.”

“There is the same objection to handing out either,” said Yorke, “before at least the last rehearsal but one. People play about with them and lose them or damage them. Marcus is spending a lot of money on the show as it is. We can’t let him in for replacements. Look, darlings, let’s just try the scene again, shall we?”

“We could do with a bit more sparkle from the court party,” said Rinkley. “Perhaps, Brian, you could suggest that their interjections as they watch our bucolic antics are supposed to be a facetious bandying of wit, not a serious criticism of our efforts.”

“Don’t he talk lovely!” said Tom Woolidge. “You leave it to Brian to instruct us, if you don’t mind, Rinkley. We want a balanced performance, not a one-man band consisting of you.”

“Sorry! Sorry! No intention of hurting your tender feelings. To go back to what I wanted to say, what about trying out a bit of business I thought up for where Thisbe comes in and finds me dead? You know the bit where she says, ‘A tomb must cover thy sweet eyes’—”

“I wish it would!” muttered Susan Hythe.