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kleenexwomanThis was an assignment for my Shakespeare class--the assignment was to write a short play in which we invited five Shakespearean characters to a dinner party and had a conversation about the role of women. Since I hate writing myself into things (or did at the time), I substituted Doctor Who and Martha for me--anyway, they have a TARDIS and would be more likely to be able to run around time picking up characters. (The prof told me that he loved it and that I "really felt" the characters. \o/)
PIECE OF WORK
A Shakespearean Pastiche
Dramatis Personae:
The Doctor: A Physician of Everything (portrayed by David Tennant)
Martha Jones: A Physician in Training (portrayed by Freema Agyeman)
Rosalind: A Woman of Indeterminate Gender
portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard
Katherine: A Shrew Reformed
portrayed by Adam Long
Prince Hamlet: A Whiny Emo Git
portrayed by John Barrymore
Lady Macbeth: An Upwardly Mobile Lady
portrayed by Mary Tamm
Richard of Gloucester: An Upwardly Mobile Hunchback
portrayed by Roger Delgado
Setting: A Chinese Restaurant at the End of the Universe
HAMLET: I thank thee both for this invitation; if I’d stayed to sup another night in that damned castle that once was my home, the leftover funeral meats would have soured in my stomach.
THE DOCTOR: And I’m sure that Ophelia hanging off your neck would have done nothing for your digestion.
HAMLET: Once, her beauty gave me an appetite for something I could not eat as well, but now, the perfume that she uses to cover the stench of her feminine deceit makes my guts shrivel. In that respect, this dinner seems no different. If I was at Elsinore, I’d at least have the chance to excuse myself and take my sup with faithful Horatio; here, I am made to sit between two women, one of whom spoils my appetite by picking at her salad as though it was filled with worms, and the other of whom keeps stealing the shrimp off my plate.
LADY MACBETH: Coward, if they are thine, then take them back. You’ve been sitting on your hands for a half hour, casting sour glances towards my plate and doing nothing to block my fork.
RICHARD: Shrimp do belong to those who are ambitious enough to take them; if the lady is hungry for shrimp, it is most natural for her to sup on yours that have been left untouched. As you’ve already announced to the entire table that you have no appetite, no matter where you sit, why dost thou object to her picking at your otherwise wasted meal?
HAMLET: They are mine by right of ordering—
LADY MACBETH: I did order the Empress Shrimp when we first sat down, but this is a plate of beef in hot mustard sauce I see before me. The server must have gotten our orders mixed up. Prince, trade dishes with me.
HAMLET: O, I am surrounded by thieves and liars both. Is there nobody at this table for whom truth is more than some foreign and fantastical idea? Am I to lose my father, my inheritance…and my dinner as well?
RICHARD: Sweet Prince, had I heard the lady order beef in hot mustard, I would have corrected her anon and made sure the shrimp found their way to your fork; but she did order the shrimp, and e’en promised to share the choicest prawns with me.
LADY MACBETH: I recall no such thing—
KATHERINE: O, but lady, His Grace Richard has attained the whole of what your darting fork could only attain in pieces. Surely, you must admit that a few pieces of shrimp are far less than his due for so gallantly protecting your meal. If you had only attended this meal with your husband, he could have made certain that you got your dish at the beginning of the meal, should he have been pleased to do so.
LADY MACBETH: —but I’m willing to share the spoils with a partner. I’ve had more rich blood than a shrimp can hold fall on my hands for the sake of a goal.
RICHARD: I may have found a kindred soul. Lady, permit me to whisper in your ear, and do grant me the honor of whispering in mine.
ROSALIND: Lady Katherine, your fork does toy with your greens, but your eyes do betray your stomach; I see you looking at that dish of beef and hot mustard as though it was the fairest man here.
KATHERINE: I must not eat hot mustard, for hot foods make the temper hot, and I am determined now to be only temperate.
MARTHA: That’s ridiculous. The only thing hot foods will do is give you a little bit of stomach trouble.
KATHERINE: But you cannot deny that the beef does round out the figure and make a woman look like the cow she feeds on—so says my husband. Just recently, he’s bidden me to eat only vegetables.
ROSALIND: O, your husband? What manner of man is this that he may drive a woman so far mad that she would starve herself to please his eye?
KATHERINE: I think you have never been truly in love if you can wonder that aloud.
ROSALIND: Were I truly in love, I would be in love with my love, and not with my love’s waistline.
KATHERINE: I can tell by your vestments that you are never looking to be in love, but that does not mean there will never be a man who can see the fairness of your cheek and the fullness of your lips above the bosom you’ve bound up.
ROSALIND: O Katherine, your eyes have grown sharp even as your tongue has grown dull. Has your husband tamed you so thoroughly that you cannot help but flatter and fawn now over anything that wears a man’s clothing?
HAMLET: Thou art truly a woman? Has the female sex now stooped to such depths of deceit that they are not content with painting their faces—must you now conceal your sex?
ROSALIND: Couldst thou truly not tell before Kate pointed it out? You seem to see deceit everywhere, no matter if it is there or not.
HAMLET: I could not; I even greeted thee as a man, when we first sat down. I never thought to find deceit in such a form.
ROSALIND: Why do you think it is deceit?
HAMLET: To conceal your true nature is the most deceitful thing of all. A single lie is one thing, but to wear a mask constantly and tell each person you see that it is your real face—
ROSALIND: Look at my face! Do you see paint on it? Do you see the mask that you so hate in women? When I lived in the forest, I had no rouge, no kohl, no powder, nothing that would hide the face that God gave me. We do paint ourselves, hide ourselves behind fans and fine cloth, behind a screen of giggles and curtseys, and think that makes us women—we mistake the mask for our own face. ‘Tis only by dressing as a man that I can remove that mask, and be treated as something other than the mask itself.
KATHERINE: There you are wrong, Ros. The beauty and delicacy of these masks is something that hides inside every woman’s soul—the lace and paint and gestures do but make visible what, unadorned, is hidden. Before I met sweet Petruchio, I would have agreed with you…but he has shown me through his gentle love that my sharpness was a mask of its own.
LADY MACBETH: Perhaps your soul is truly rimmed in lace, Lady Kate, but mine’s not. Do not speak for every woman. Take away these breasts, these hips, these dark and flowing tresses, and I would be more of a man than my absent husband. In truth, I do believe I am more of a man than some of the creatures at this very table who style themselves such.
MARTHA: Wait, wait. Just because you’re strong and ruthless, you think that means you can’t really be a woman?
LADY MACBETH: Aye, these breasts and this womb are a curse, for they and nothing else mark me as woman.
THE DOCTOR: There are operations for that, you know.
HAMLET: Do you refer to me, Lady?
KATHERINE: I think she does, Prince; if you will not protect something as small as a meal, how will you protect your home? How will you protect a woman? Indeed, you’d be better off had you been born as one.
RICHARD: O, the lady’s sharp tongue doth return to her!
KATHERINE: I mean no offense, only truth. Women are meant to be protected, and men are meant to protect them. But ‘tis far easier to convince a woman to accept protection than ‘tis to convince a man to protect her, and if a man cannot protect himself then truly there is no hope for him.
HAMLET: Is to keep a woman a man’s only fate? Is the soul of a true man black with bloodthirst and greed? Then indeed I would that I was a woman, for all of these things are odious and wretched to me.
ROSALIND: O, but then you would be that which you despise for deceit.
HAMLET: There is no recourse! To be a woman is to be deceitful and weak, but to be a man is to be cruel and craven! Is there no sex that hath not such venal faults? Hath the Creator imbued such fundamental flaws into all of his creation?
ROSALIND: I think that while you think thus, you will never be satisfied with any clothes you wear.
LADY MACBETH: And you, Sir Richard? Do you think that women are only to be protected?
RICHARD: I think ‘twere better for any weak creature that it were protected, regardless of sex, and better luck for the strong when they are not.
A Shakespearean Pastiche
Dramatis Personae:
The Doctor: A Physician of Everything (portrayed by David Tennant)
Martha Jones: A Physician in Training (portrayed by Freema Agyeman)
Rosalind: A Woman of Indeterminate Gender
portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard
Katherine: A Shrew Reformed
portrayed by Adam Long
Prince Hamlet: A Whiny Emo Git
portrayed by John Barrymore
Lady Macbeth: An Upwardly Mobile Lady
portrayed by Mary Tamm
Richard of Gloucester: An Upwardly Mobile Hunchback
portrayed by Roger Delgado
Setting: A Chinese Restaurant at the End of the Universe
HAMLET: I thank thee both for this invitation; if I’d stayed to sup another night in that damned castle that once was my home, the leftover funeral meats would have soured in my stomach.
THE DOCTOR: And I’m sure that Ophelia hanging off your neck would have done nothing for your digestion.
HAMLET: Once, her beauty gave me an appetite for something I could not eat as well, but now, the perfume that she uses to cover the stench of her feminine deceit makes my guts shrivel. In that respect, this dinner seems no different. If I was at Elsinore, I’d at least have the chance to excuse myself and take my sup with faithful Horatio; here, I am made to sit between two women, one of whom spoils my appetite by picking at her salad as though it was filled with worms, and the other of whom keeps stealing the shrimp off my plate.
LADY MACBETH: Coward, if they are thine, then take them back. You’ve been sitting on your hands for a half hour, casting sour glances towards my plate and doing nothing to block my fork.
RICHARD: Shrimp do belong to those who are ambitious enough to take them; if the lady is hungry for shrimp, it is most natural for her to sup on yours that have been left untouched. As you’ve already announced to the entire table that you have no appetite, no matter where you sit, why dost thou object to her picking at your otherwise wasted meal?
HAMLET: They are mine by right of ordering—
LADY MACBETH: I did order the Empress Shrimp when we first sat down, but this is a plate of beef in hot mustard sauce I see before me. The server must have gotten our orders mixed up. Prince, trade dishes with me.
HAMLET: O, I am surrounded by thieves and liars both. Is there nobody at this table for whom truth is more than some foreign and fantastical idea? Am I to lose my father, my inheritance…and my dinner as well?
RICHARD: Sweet Prince, had I heard the lady order beef in hot mustard, I would have corrected her anon and made sure the shrimp found their way to your fork; but she did order the shrimp, and e’en promised to share the choicest prawns with me.
LADY MACBETH: I recall no such thing—
KATHERINE: O, but lady, His Grace Richard has attained the whole of what your darting fork could only attain in pieces. Surely, you must admit that a few pieces of shrimp are far less than his due for so gallantly protecting your meal. If you had only attended this meal with your husband, he could have made certain that you got your dish at the beginning of the meal, should he have been pleased to do so.
LADY MACBETH: —but I’m willing to share the spoils with a partner. I’ve had more rich blood than a shrimp can hold fall on my hands for the sake of a goal.
RICHARD: I may have found a kindred soul. Lady, permit me to whisper in your ear, and do grant me the honor of whispering in mine.
ROSALIND: Lady Katherine, your fork does toy with your greens, but your eyes do betray your stomach; I see you looking at that dish of beef and hot mustard as though it was the fairest man here.
KATHERINE: I must not eat hot mustard, for hot foods make the temper hot, and I am determined now to be only temperate.
MARTHA: That’s ridiculous. The only thing hot foods will do is give you a little bit of stomach trouble.
KATHERINE: But you cannot deny that the beef does round out the figure and make a woman look like the cow she feeds on—so says my husband. Just recently, he’s bidden me to eat only vegetables.
ROSALIND: O, your husband? What manner of man is this that he may drive a woman so far mad that she would starve herself to please his eye?
KATHERINE: I think you have never been truly in love if you can wonder that aloud.
ROSALIND: Were I truly in love, I would be in love with my love, and not with my love’s waistline.
KATHERINE: I can tell by your vestments that you are never looking to be in love, but that does not mean there will never be a man who can see the fairness of your cheek and the fullness of your lips above the bosom you’ve bound up.
ROSALIND: O Katherine, your eyes have grown sharp even as your tongue has grown dull. Has your husband tamed you so thoroughly that you cannot help but flatter and fawn now over anything that wears a man’s clothing?
HAMLET: Thou art truly a woman? Has the female sex now stooped to such depths of deceit that they are not content with painting their faces—must you now conceal your sex?
ROSALIND: Couldst thou truly not tell before Kate pointed it out? You seem to see deceit everywhere, no matter if it is there or not.
HAMLET: I could not; I even greeted thee as a man, when we first sat down. I never thought to find deceit in such a form.
ROSALIND: Why do you think it is deceit?
HAMLET: To conceal your true nature is the most deceitful thing of all. A single lie is one thing, but to wear a mask constantly and tell each person you see that it is your real face—
ROSALIND: Look at my face! Do you see paint on it? Do you see the mask that you so hate in women? When I lived in the forest, I had no rouge, no kohl, no powder, nothing that would hide the face that God gave me. We do paint ourselves, hide ourselves behind fans and fine cloth, behind a screen of giggles and curtseys, and think that makes us women—we mistake the mask for our own face. ‘Tis only by dressing as a man that I can remove that mask, and be treated as something other than the mask itself.
KATHERINE: There you are wrong, Ros. The beauty and delicacy of these masks is something that hides inside every woman’s soul—the lace and paint and gestures do but make visible what, unadorned, is hidden. Before I met sweet Petruchio, I would have agreed with you…but he has shown me through his gentle love that my sharpness was a mask of its own.
LADY MACBETH: Perhaps your soul is truly rimmed in lace, Lady Kate, but mine’s not. Do not speak for every woman. Take away these breasts, these hips, these dark and flowing tresses, and I would be more of a man than my absent husband. In truth, I do believe I am more of a man than some of the creatures at this very table who style themselves such.
MARTHA: Wait, wait. Just because you’re strong and ruthless, you think that means you can’t really be a woman?
LADY MACBETH: Aye, these breasts and this womb are a curse, for they and nothing else mark me as woman.
THE DOCTOR: There are operations for that, you know.
HAMLET: Do you refer to me, Lady?
KATHERINE: I think she does, Prince; if you will not protect something as small as a meal, how will you protect your home? How will you protect a woman? Indeed, you’d be better off had you been born as one.
RICHARD: O, the lady’s sharp tongue doth return to her!
KATHERINE: I mean no offense, only truth. Women are meant to be protected, and men are meant to protect them. But ‘tis far easier to convince a woman to accept protection than ‘tis to convince a man to protect her, and if a man cannot protect himself then truly there is no hope for him.
HAMLET: Is to keep a woman a man’s only fate? Is the soul of a true man black with bloodthirst and greed? Then indeed I would that I was a woman, for all of these things are odious and wretched to me.
ROSALIND: O, but then you would be that which you despise for deceit.
HAMLET: There is no recourse! To be a woman is to be deceitful and weak, but to be a man is to be cruel and craven! Is there no sex that hath not such venal faults? Hath the Creator imbued such fundamental flaws into all of his creation?
ROSALIND: I think that while you think thus, you will never be satisfied with any clothes you wear.
LADY MACBETH: And you, Sir Richard? Do you think that women are only to be protected?
RICHARD: I think ‘twere better for any weak creature that it were protected, regardless of sex, and better luck for the strong when they are not.