George
I must have seen the backside of sixty pounds today. I could have bought a horse. Vanishing Spark. Why did you let me bet on a horse called Vanishing Spark?
Charles
What the fuck?
George
Johnny!
John
Gents, spare a drink for a couple of chums?
Charles
Where’ve you been?
John
Our show was such a success in the capital, we had to undertake an extensive tour of the provinces. Now, where’s the fucking drink?
George
Come on, Charlie, get out your winnings.
Charles
This is it, gentlemen! This is the residence of the whore personally recommended by Mr Dryden himself, who glories in the name of Molly Noakes.
Billy
Well, what are we waiting for? Open up, keeper of the gate!
Charles
Molly! Molly!
George
Molly. . .
Charles
Molly!
Man 1
Gentlemen?
John
Where’s Molly?
Billy
We want Molly and we want her fast.
Man 1
Young man, you are pissing on my top boots.
Billy
Yes, fellow. But you are a whorehouse doorstep man and we are the cream of the country.
Man 1
I am Constable of the Watch.
George
Dryden can’t even write a shag map.
Billy
You, sir, are a rogue and a liar.
Man 2
Murder! Help!
Man 1
Now, then, gentlemen. . .
George
I do believe there’s been a small species of error. We are. . . Johnny! Johnny!
Billy
Johnny!
Man 1
No!
Billy
Aargh. Aargh. My eyes! Johnny, please. . . Johnny!
John
I told you.
King
It’s been six months. Where the fuck is he? Find him.
Courtier
Your Majesty.
John (voice)
I find myself at the gates of death, almost blind and utterly lame. Scarce with the reasonable hope of ever seeing you again. With my sickness it seems the world has turned hateful of me. But I will rise again to right this injustice and take back your heart.
John
The mercury cures the pox, but it scrambles the mind. Poses a problem for a gent, does it not? The prick or the brain?
Jane
Sshhh. Johnny, shush.
Courtier 1
He’s been seen in Cheapside, accompanied by a serving man and a whore. If he’s very drunk, he’ll be no problem. If he’s a bit drunk, be careful.
Courtier 2
What if he’s sober?
Courtier 1
You’ve got the wrong man.
Jane
Ladies and gents! Gather near! Listen well. For I got a doctor’s cure to sell. Mouth, stomach, knees and toes. All be cured by Dr Bendo.
John
(Muttering). Little chicken. (Muttering). Questurino! (Jabbering). Mayo. In honestus. Gulpo. (Jabbering). Poofay. In flatuo. In flatuo.
King
The French, Parliament, his syphilitic earlship. I’m being pissed on from half a dozen directions at once, and it don’t accord with my majestic dignity.
Courtier 1
We have three confirmed sightings. Our sources are impeccable.
King
Take me to them. Now.
Alcock
I’ve shut up shop for the day. I had to turn forty people away.
John
I think it mean work cozening citizens of their money.
Alcock
We made eighty pounds today.
John
We are here for our recreation.
Alcock
We’re here ‘cos we can’t show our faces.
John
Do you ever think. . . on our Lord Jesus Christ? He was cast like me into the wilderness. He was scorned and reviled. He was betrayed by his followers.
Alcock
I believe that in most respects, his life was of a different character from yours.
John
He would have brought Billy Downs back from death.
Alcock
Ach, them are wandering thoughts.
John
Leave me. Go!
Jane
Johnny! Johnny! Aargh! Johnny! Leave him alone!
Courtier
On your knees.
John
I’m not impressed. It has taken you six months to find me.
King
You think in six months I’ve given you more than five minutes’ thought? Those Parliament bastards are trying to shaft me again with the new bill to exclude my successors. Subtle. Instead of chopping kings’ heads off, you pick and choose the ones you want. That’s my civil war. Not you. Mr Etherege is packing out the Dorset Gardens with you as the greatest spark on Earth. The East End is throwing down it’s purse for you to be a quack doctor. And the town has you branded as a coward who leaves his friend to die in a brawl.
John
All men would be cowards. . . if they only had the courage.
King
The boy died and you ran off.
John
I have to go to far, do you see? I must always exceed or I do not feel like I’m alive.
King
And that’s why the great epic about my reign became a squalid little play about knobbing. And that’s why Downs died. I thought about putting you in the Tower. I even considered putting your head on a spike. But I’ve decided on something worse. I’m going to ignore you. I will no longer encourage any hope in my breast for you. I am condemning you to be you, for the rest of your days.
John
How I hate the country. Drink. Drink!
Alcock
The shelves are empty, my lord.
John
Go to the cellars, cunt! I said, find me a fucking drink. Are you unable to discharge your duties as housekeeper?
Alcock
I fear this is the last, my lord.
John
Elizabeth, why has the cellar not been replenished?
Elizabeth
Leave us. Leave us!
Alcock
My lady.
Elizabeth
I am ever your last resort. When your mistress has kicked you into the street and the last whore in Covent Garden refuses to attend to you, then and only then do you come to me!
John
I think you will never be a contented woman until you are a much-respected widow. And I am hard at work on doing you that last good service.
Elizabeth
I don’t want you to die! I want you to live, and live differently!
John
Ow!
Elizabeth
Stop it!
John
Ow! Elizabeth!
Elizabeth
Why? If it’s good for you, is it not good for me, too?
John
It is not good for me.
Elizabeth
Why then do you pursue that path? When were you last a sober man?
John
Three years. . . No, four. . . four years ago. Five. Five.
Elizabeth
And are you not, John, a rational man? Has not your intellect been widely praised?
John
It has.
Elizabeth
So, this man of intellect, this rational man, knowing that five years of constant drinking have rendered his body feeble and his spirit low, what would this man of intellect do?
John
You seek to trap me like a. . .
Elizabeth
What would he do?
John
. . . cunning lawyer! He would desist! Cunt!
Elizabeth
Yes, he would desist. And those he loved would they not show their love by beseeching him to desist?
John
It is not so simple, my darling.
Elizabeth
I’ve heard men say that the devil is in you. If that be so, I know how he made his entrance.
J’s Mother
He has suffered much both in sickness and in reputation. You are a man of God. Bring my son to him. My son, God has seen fit to visit these terrible diseases on you. But it torments me less as a mother to see you die in agony in the arms of God. . . than live an atheist.
John
Mother. If God wants men to have faith, why does he not make us more disposed to believe?
Vicar
Most men are so disposed.
John
But not me.
Vicar
Because you set your reason against religion.
John
I despised reason.
Vicar
You clung to reason. You laughed in the face of God with the aid of reason.
John
Speak me that speech again. Those words from Isaiah.
Vicar
‘And he is despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows. . . and acquainted with grief’.
John
‘And we hid our faces from him.’ God raise me from this bed to do what I must do.
Courtier
We’ve taken soundings. It’s very close. We may be fifteen votes short.
Lord 1
The House cannot give way to the King on this matter!
King
Then get me fifteen votes.
Lord 1
And I believe it will not!
Lords
Hear, hear!
Lord 1
The Earl of Rochester.
Lord 2
Coward!
Lord 3
Coward!
Lord 4
Coward!
Lord 5
Coward!
Lord 6
Coward!
John
Mt lord. . . the bill before us would seek to bar the King’s brother from succeeding to the throne on the grounds that he is a Catholic. And for this reason, it has been said that no good Protestant can speak against this bill. And yet, sir, I cannot forbear to offer some objections against it. But the question will arise in the minds of some lords here present. . . as to whether I am indeed. . . a good Protestant. No man here will question, I hope, my goodness. . . in any one of the three chief pursuits of our age, the scribbling of verses, the emptying of bottles, and the filling of wenches. There may be those with a claim to be as good as I, but taking these three pursuits simultaneously. . . and, sir, I have so taken them, and can vouch that considerable manual dexterity is required, I cannot be equalled, let alone bettered. So, let not my goodness be questioned. It is not so many years since our present King’s father. . . was killed on a kind of stage, outside the walls of this very building. And, in time, his murderers were condemned and themselves executed. But. . . were they condemned without being heard? They were not. In spite of the certainty of their guilt and the horrid weight of their cowardly crimes, they were allowed the due process of law. But what is suggested before this House. . . is that we condemn that murdered king’s second son with less shrift than was given to his killers. My lord, let us have justice. When the time arrives for our good and present king to be taken from us, let then his Catholic brother be impeached in this House in the normal way. And if he be found wanting, then let his head be chopped off at the neck. . . if the House feel that is what he merits. But for my part, I shall believe my oath of allegiance to the throne to be a thing inviolable. . . and that whatever the faith of the successor to the throne, his pre-eminence in the royal lineage must hold sway over all other considerations. Sir, my humble motion. . . is that the monarchy. . . be
Lords
Hear, hear!
Lord 1
Kings are Kings! You can’t pick and choose!
Lord 2
Throw it out! Throw it out!
Lord 3
He spoke for us all!
King
Johnny. You did it. You finally did something for me.
John
I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.
Courtier
Your Majesty, we won. By forty votes.
King
There you are, Johnny. You did it.
George
Molly. I’ve brought in the Earl to gawp at my triumph.
Molly
Authors have a place, Mr Etherege. It is in the garret. I do not like them cluttering up my theatre.
George
Lizzie won’t see him. She won’t see Johnny. This is the only way.
Molly
I don’t want her upset.
John
I could have written a splendid play.
George
NO, you couldn’t. The Man Of Mode. The spirit of the age caught for all time. I did it. You didn’t, because you don’t have the gift.
John
Gentle George.
Lizzie
What is he doing here?
Molly
Don’t blame me.
George
John, I’ll see you after. I’ll be at Long’s.
John
Very well. Lockett’s?
George
Long’s.
John
Long’s. I saw the first two acts.
Lizzie
And you didn’t like me?
John
To the contrary. I could bear your brilliance no longer. Mr Harris, you are playing me. The understudy has become the actor.
Mr Harris
My lord, I heard news of your death six months ago and experienced a spasm of regret. But your subsequent resurrection has quite cured my grief.
John
I am nature, and you are art. Let us see how we compare.
Molly
Mr Harris has a quick change and you will let him be.
John
Here we have him, your Restoration gent. He’s not pissed his breeches today and he can walk in a straight line for two hundred yards without falling on his face and retching. Now, look you upon this picture and on this. He has not washed. He cannot walk. And he most certainly will not be able to raise either the price of his dinner or his own pintle.
Mr Harris
I must be got into my nightgown.
John
This is what I envy in you stage people. You make time seem so important. I must change my clothes now! I must make my entrance now! But life is not a succession of urgent nows. It is a listless trickle of Why should I’s.
Molly
You’re on. Five minutes only, Mrs Barry.
John
I never wanted you for a mistress, Lizzie. I wanted you for my wife.
Lizzie
You have no understanding, do you? It was not being your mistress that I was tired of, John. I was tired of you. I did not wish to be your wife. I do not wish to be anyone’s wife. I wish to continue being the creature I am. London walks into this theatre to see me. Not George’s play, nor Mr Betterton. They want me, and they want me over and over again. I will not swap my certain glory for your undependable love.
John
I wanted you to have my child.
Lizzie
I had your child. A daughter. When the theatres were closed in the summer. By the start of the season I was flat enough to play Desdemona in a nightgown.
Molly
Two minutes, Mrs Barry, please.
John
What is her name?
Lizzie
Elizabeth.
John
Elizabeth? The child of our passion. When I bred my other children, I placed no value on human life at all, and. . . now you send me away. And I cannot go back to where I was before. I shall never forgive you for teaching me to love life.
Lizzie
If I taught you that, then our account is settled. Your lesson to me was my livelihood. And mine to you was life itself. We have no need to meet again.
John
Lizzie.
Lizzie
If you are in London, and you have half a crown in your pocket, you may see me there. For the rest, I hope I shall always be in your heart, sometimes in your thoughts, but never in your debt.
John
I am thirty three. . . years old. I am dying. I have tried to speak the truth. But I have been betrayed. Elizabeth. . . speak to me of abduction.
Elizabeth
I was eighteen. And worth two and a half thousand a year. You ambushed me, bundled me into your coach and rattled me away. The King thrust. . .
Singer
If underneath death’s cold wing His restless soul should fly. . .
Lizzie
He charmed the tenderest virgins with delight. And with his style did fiercest blockheads fright.
Singer
Beyond the grasp of fools T’would meet with the bliss they deny So stand for him Knell for him As he lies low in kneaded clay Pray for him who prayed too late That he might shine on Judgement Day. . .
John
So, there he lies at the last. The deathbed convert. The pious debauchee. Could not dance half a measure, could I? Give me wine, I’d drain the dregs and toss the empty bottle at the world. Show me our Lord Jesus in agony, and I mount the cross and steal his nails for my own palms. There I go, shuffling from the world, my dribble fresh upon a Bible. I look upon a pinhead. . . and I see angels dancing. Well? Do you like me now? Do you like me now? Do you like me now? Do you like me. . . now?
Singer
Christe Eleison. O Domine Deus. Dona nobis pacem. O Domine Deus. Dona nobis pacem. O Domine Deus. Dona nobis pacem. O Domine Deus. Dona nobis pacem.
