George
She does it with me.
Charles
She does not! Mary, if I may say so a statuesque performance.
George
Bursting with Grecian promise.
Mr Harris
Mrs Barry, the work we did beforehand, did it mean nothing to you/
Lizzie
That is correct, Mr Harris.
Mr Harris
Molly, I cannot tech those who will not be disposed to learn. Mr Etherege, how do you do, sir?
George
Well, Mr Harris.
Mr Harris
Was my Lord Rochester in with you?
George
Darted off.
Mr Harris
Did you care for the play?
George
The play was well enough.
Billy
Most of the acting, too.
John
Mrs Barry.
Molly
She has been dismissed.
John
I bring word from Mt Betterton.
Lizzie
I’ve had such already.
John
This is quite another.
Lizzie
You have obtained a reprieve for me.
John
Yes, madam, but there is a price. This is your first season on the London stage.
Lizzie
It is, my lord.
John
Mrs Barry, you must acquire the trick of ignoring those who do not like you. In my experience, those who do not like you fall into two categories, the stupid and the envious. The stupid will like you in five years’ time, the envious never. With my training, you will become the best, the most fascinating actress on the London Stage. I shall come to the theatre tomorrow.
George
What are you up to, Johnny? She can’t act.
Billy
She has neither the cadence of the heroic nor the posture.
John
I will wager you twenty guineas she will become the finest actress on our stage.
Charles
This is the prick talking, not the head. Knob her and have done.
John
Is it a wager?
George
My dear friend, you do not have twenty guineas.
John
Is it a wager?
Charles
We’ve missed the fuck. Can we get a drink?
Billy
There’s a new toping house hard by called Deaf Marion’s.
George
Ah, the Cambridge boy knows his books by heart. Lead on, King’s.
John
Alcock.
Alcock
My lord.
John
Something rotten has got into my guts.
Alcock
I trust it is not me, my lord.
John
No, Alcock, it is not. Not yet.
Elizabeth
We should mark the front lawn at Adderbury for pall-mall. I had always thought it a foolish game.
John
Depends on who you play with.
Elizabeth
The King plays with a common prostitute, not his wife.
John
The Portuguese have little flair for outdoor pursuits. Except navigating, of course.
Elizabeth
I mean that the etiquette of it is singular.
John
I know what you mean.
Elizabeth
You must always be ace, king and jack, my dear. But heaven has not disposed your cards so.
George
Johnny! It’s your shot!
John
I’m not playing!
King
Oh, but you are, John. You are if I say you are. The most advanced scientific instrument in western Europe. It cost £60,000. It tells the time in every corner of the globe. Understand? That is achievement. The man who did that was not continually pissed for the last three years.
John
What do you want from me?
King
Writing something profound that will stand as a monument to my reign. You’re my literary giant. Dryden? Plodder. But look what he’s achieved. Elizabeth had her Shakespeare. You can be mine. Give me a major work of literature and I’ll give you five hundred guineas.
John
When would you like it? Friday?
King
Don’t fuck it up, John. I love you.
Molly
Mrs Barry! I cannot let you have long. I must prepare Tamburlaine. There’s a great deal of setting up.
John
Mrs Barry.
Molly
. . . And a great deal of taking down.
Lizzie
My Lord Rochester.
John
I’m come as I said I would.
Lizzie
Would you have me lift my skirt? Or do you have a mind to raise it by your own endeavours?
John
I’m come to train you. . . in your acting.
Lizzie
So you said when we first met, but your reputation being what it is, I thought you meant something different.
John
I have, I hope, many reputations. I am come, I say, to train you in your stage acting.
Lizzie
Never in my life have I heard you spoken of as an actor.
John
That does not deter me from spreading my insights to others.
Lizzie
I thought it would not.
John
Then we shall begin. You are familiar with the plays of Mr Etherege?
Lizzie
There are but two, my lord.
John
Not for long, I fear. The Comical Revenge or Love In A Tub. Have you seen Mrs Betterton playing Garciana?
Lizzie
Yes, I’m her understudy.
John
Indeed. Act Two, Scene Two. I shall play Beaufort. Graciana, why do you condemn your love? Your beauty without that, alas, would prove but my destruction. An unlucky star prognosticating ruin and despair.
Lizzie
You mistake. ‘Tis not my love I blame, but my discretion. Here the active flame should yet a longer time have been concealed. Too soon, too soon I fear it was revealed. Our weaker sex glories in surprise. We boast the sudden conquests of our eyes. But men esteem a foe that dares contend. One that with noble courage does defend a wounded heart. The victories they gain, they prize by their own hazard and their pain.
John
That was not Elizabeth Barry. That was Mrs Betterton.
Lizzie
An understudy must imitate, not create.
John
Yesterday you created.
Lizzie
Yesterday I was dismissed.
John
But you played truthfully.
Lizzie
It costs too much to play the truth.
John
I do not think you have considered this speech at all.
Lizzie
Well, how would you have me do it?
John
Let us consider now. What does it mean, that speech that Mrs Betterton mangled so?
Lizzie
Graciana means that she has given away the secrets of her heart too freely. Something that a gentlewoman must not do to a gentleman.
John
Why not?
Lizzie
Because men will take love for granted and then not prize it.
John
And is our author right? Do you believe that?
Lizzie
I believe men are hurdles that must be negotiated.
John
Is that all? Do you never feel passion for us?
Lizzie
I’ve counterfeited passion in gentlemen’s beds if that is your meaning.
John
Counterfeit will not serve you on the stage.
Lizzie
Yesterday I was jeered and taunted by four hundred ruffians. I know that will not serve me.
John
And so you will take their word against both of ours and traffic in falsehood from now on?
Lizzie
I don’t know.
John
Then let us gain knowledge. To the speech again. You played it sweetly. Graciana is not innocent or she would not have such insight. If you had ever loved a man, you would say that speech with regret. Because you would fear the loss of him.
Lizzie
And supposing I have loved?
John
Then show me in the speech.
Lizzie
Sir, you mistake. ‘Tis not my love I blame, but my discretion. Here the active flame should yet a longer time have been concealed. Too soon, too soon I fear it was revealed. Our weaker sex glories in surprise. We boast the sudden conquests of our eyes. But men esteem a foe that dares contend. One that with noble courage does defend a wounded heart. The victories they gain, they prize by their own hazard and their pain. Well? Was there improvement?
John
Did you think so?
Lizzie
I wish to know your thoughts.
John
It was better. But now you’re too angry.
Lizzie
Of course I’m fucking angry! You walk into this theatre in tour thirty shilling boots telling me how I should set about my work! I warn you, I have a temper. And I have been known to strike out with the first object at hand. Well, and if that be a property blade, some have sharper edges than is needful, so have a care.
John
Ahhh. To die onstage at the hands of a beautiful woman.
Lizzie
I am no such!
John
I think I can make you an actress of truth, not a creature of artifice. I can do this. But I cannot train you unless you give a little towards me.
Lizzie
It’s not in my nature to give. I have my talent and I’m jealous of it. And though I give you credit that you and you alone in all the town have seen it, I am not so dazzled by the lord and master in you that I cannot resent you. Yes. You are right. I am intent on doing something that no other has yet done. And I lost my purpose yesterday with fear of the pit. But I will conquer them. And it shall not be said when I have my fame and my two pounds a week that Lord Rochester took to me and touched me with the shining wing of his genius and so turned me into a little corner of his greatness. No! I shall be valued for me. And for what I knew I could do upon this stage! And for what I, Lizzie Barry. . . how I. . . I took the heat of my own soul and moulded it and turned it into a wondrous thing and so triumphed.
John
If I can help you to that triumph, I am not so devoted to the trumpeting of my own works that I would wish to take credit.
Lizzie
So you say now. But in the ale house, when the play is done, and the talk is of my Cleopatra, will you not glide towards your cronies with a ‘I taught her that piece of business’ or ‘She could not be heard in the gallery until I instructed her in a trick or two’?
John
Madam, I offer my services. If you see no advantage in them, they can as easy be withdrawn.
Lizzie
You could buy my slit for a pound a night, sir. I would not mind that. But I think you would not have it so. What I think you want is power over me, which I do bridle at. For it is only I who can do what you say I can do. If you wish to play a part in this, I would strongly know why.
John
Ask yourself what you want from the theatre.
Lizzie
I want the passionate love of my audience. I want when I make a sweep of my arm to carry their hearts away. And for when I die, for them to sigh for never seeing me again. ‘Till the next afternoon.
John
There is your answer. I want to be one of that multitude. I wish to be moved. I cannot feel in life. I must have others do it for me here in the theatre.
Lizzie
You are spoken of as a man with a stomach for life.
John
I am the cynic of our golden age. This bounteous dish, which our great Charles and our great God have, more or less in equal measure, placed before us, sets my teeth permanently on edge. Life has no purpose. It is everywhere undone by arbitrariness. I do this and it matters not a jot if I do the opposite. But in a playhouse, every action, good or bad, has it’s consequences. Drop a handkerchief and it will return to smother you. The theatre is my drug. And my illness is so far advanced that my physic must be of the highest quality.
Lizzie
Oh, my lord, on these conditions, I endeavour to do what you want.
John
What I want is that we meet again tomorrow to consider Ophelia.
Lizzie
Ophelia?
John
Mr Betterton will revive hamlet next month and you will play Ophelia.
Lizzie
Ophelia then if you wish. But let us not neglect the lesson in Mr Etherege’s speech.
John
And what is that?
Lizzie
That women should ever view men with suspicion.
John
I shall be happy to return and address our work with that instruction written on the inside of my skull. Do me now.
Jane
How?
John
Mouth. Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry, A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie. This. . . dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried, With virgin blood ten thousand maids have dyed, Now languid lies in this unhappy hour. Shrunk up. . . and sapless, like a withered flower.
Jane
I have a feeling this is going nowhere.
John
I have that feeling too. I’ve met this woman. Lizzie Barry.
Jane
That new actress? She ain’t no looker.
John
There is spirit in her.
Jane
When a gent sees the spirit and not the eyes or the tits, then a gent is in trouble.
John
Would you call me a cynic, Jane?
Jane
I would call you a man who pretends to like life more than he does.
John
Is that a cynic?
Jane
I’m just a moll-sack. I don’t do questions.
John
If I am a cynic, how have I fallen in love with a plain woman, whom I do not know?
Jane
You saw her on stage. All the colours and them poems they say. Gives them a glow. You’ve seen her out of the theatre?
John
No.
Jane
Well, then it’s not her. It’s the theatre. That, or. . .
John
Or what?
Jane
They say men fall three times. First is calf love. Second is the one you marry.
John
And third?
Jane
Third. . . Third is your deathbed bride. You sniff her, you sniff your own shroud.
John
Ah. How you have cheered me.
Jane
Go home and sleep.
John
I don’t want to sleep.
Jane
Then go home and think.
John
I don’t ever want to think again.
Jane
John. Don’t make me care for you. I’d rather you came your fetch over my face than leave me with that, a lump of caring. Now go home and forget.
John (voice)
Much wine had passed with grave discourse Of who fucks who and who does worse. When I, who still take care to see Drunkenness relieved by lechery, Went our into St. James’s Park To cool my head and fire my heart. But though St. James has the honour on’t, ‘Tis consecrate to prick and cunt. There, by a most incestuous birth, Strange woods spring from the teeming earth. And nightly now, beneath their shade, Are buggeries, rapes and incests made.
John
Mr Huysmans. Perhaps a bottle and a glass would be handsome adornments to your composition?
Mr Huysmans
They are not appropriate objects in a family portrait, my lord.
John
Mr Huysmans, here is another thought. You see that monkey yonder dancing to the fiddle? Can’t help but notice how human these creatures are. I would sit that monkey on a pile of solemn volumes, and place in her hand a scrap of paper as if it were a poem she’d just written, do you see? And while she is offering the poem to me, I am crowning her with the bays.
Mr Huysmans
I find Lady Rochester a more elegant and interesting subject.
John
You are wide of the point, sir. Elegance, interest, all very well in their way. But what do they illuminate?
Elizabeth
Am I not then an apt partner for you to sit with?
John
You are apt, Elizabeth. You are very apt.
Elizabeth
But you would rather be painted with a monkey?
John
It is of a muchness. You are both apt in your different ways. In this portrait I am no better than a monkey who knows the names of his ancestors.
Elizabeth
And I?
John
A gaudy female monkey, gloating over the opulence of your cage. I love London. Everyone catches it’s generous spirit so quickly.
Alcock
Indeed.
