The Libertine (NHB Modern Plays) Read online

  ETHEREGE. He’s forgiven you –

  ROCHESTER. He’s forgiven me, I can’t forgive him.

  SACKVILLE. So why did he banish you?

  MRS WILL comes in with coffee for ROCHESTER.

  ROCHESTER. Well, it is a fine morning I am walking through the galleries, the King is walking through the galleries, I am splendidly alone, he is surrounded by a slow-moving troupe of Mediterranean dignitaries –

  SACKVILLE. The wife’s family –

  ROCHESTER. And he must make a show of me. Behold the Earl of Rochester, the Gent, the Wit, the Poet! Pray let us have some of your muse now. What am I to do? I must not extemporise for it always turns out so bawdy. Then I recall, in my pocket I have a sketch of something rustic with nymphs, I pull it out – (Pulling out paper.) and deliver:

  ‘I’ th’ isle of Britain, long since famous grown

  For breeding th’ best cunts in Christendom – ’

  ‘Rat me’, thinks I, ‘this is not the piece of paper I had supposed.’ The sovereign’s eyes are more piercingly black than I can remember, the jaws of his entourage are decidedly earthbound, but I KNOW I DO NOT HAVE IT IN ME TO STOP.

  ETHEREGE. Oh, Johnny.

  ROCHESTER. IT GETS WORSE. This piece of paper is not covered merely with the thump and slop of congress, no, no, this poem is an attack on the monarchy itself, culminating in a depiction of the Royal Mistress striving to flog the flaccid Royal Member into a state of excitement:

  ‘This you’d believe, had I but time to tell ye

  The pains it costs to poor laborious Nelly,

  Whilst she employs hands, fingers, mouth and thighs,

  Ere she can raise the member she enjoys.

  All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on,

  From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.’

  A ghastly silence. MRS WILL, distraught, goes back to her kitchen. The WITS and JANE begin to giggle.

  ETHEREGE. It is damn’d good though, Johnny.

  ROCHESTER. Of course it’s good, that’s not the point. The point is, he couldn’t appreciate it. The eye freezes me, he tosses his periwig and sweeps on with the wife’s family in tow. Took me a couple of hours to write that poem – JUST TO PLEASE HIM – not only didn’t raise a laugh, two months in the country at the height of the season, missed all the good plays.

  ETHEREGE. Come on, Johnny, cheer yourself up, give us an improvised stanza on our whole company and we’ll laugh in the King’s place.

  ROCHESTER. Stanzas on the company? Where shall I start?

  SACKVILLE. With me.

  ROCHESTER. Well, that’s easy:

  Charles Sackville

  Was the first to swyve

  The young Nell Gwyn it’s reckoned:

  So though our King

  Has since shagged Gwyn

  He’s only Charles the second.

  The WITS thump the table in appreciation.

  SACKVILLE. Damn you, Johnny, now you’ve made me melancholy for my sonsie Nell.

  ROCHESTER. Well, she ain’t your sonsie Nell any more, Chas, and the sooner you get used to it, the sooner your pecker will rise again to useful service.

  ETHEREGE. Me, me.

  ROCHESTER. Ah, Gentle George.

  To Etherege

  I drink a pledge

  His life has run the gamut:

  He’s penned naught good

  Since She Would If She Could

  He would if he could but he cannot.

  The WITS hammer the table again.

  ETHEREGE. Well, Johnny, it was a damned well-said thing, but it ain’t true, d’y’see.

  ROCHESTER. Oh, but it is true, Georgie. You’re one of those literary types who think they can enjoy the town’s esteem for ever for something they wrote seven years ago. You can’t be promising for ever. Sooner or later you have to do something.

  ETHEREGE. That’s what I’m saying. I’ve done it. I’ve written a new play.

  A sensation. Everyone awaits ROCHESTER’s reaction.

  ROCHESTER. Oooooh. Written a new play, has he? All those afternoons he was pretending to slope off and roger his mistress like a decent chap, he was lurking in his rooms poking away at a play.

  SACKVILLE. That’s disgusting, George.

  ROCHESTER. Disgusting and shameful.

  SACKVILLE. Come on, out with it. Tell us what it’s called.

  ETHEREGE. Well, it doesn’t actually have a title yet.

  SACKVILLE. No title.

  ETHEREGE. It hasn’t got a title or a fifth act.

  ROCHESTER. Will you mark the poverty of the rogue’s understanding? He lacks the two things which will ensure success –

  SACKVILLE. The title to draw the crowd in –

  ROCHESTER. – and the fifth act to send them away content.

  DOWNS. A man may fill the gap between these two mighty abstractions with any dross.

  ETHEREGE. What I do have is a central character –

  ROCHESTER. What’s he called?

  ETHEREGE. Dorimant.

  ROCHESTER. Dorimant, Christ’s wounds that’s subtle. Don’t tell me it’s based on Dryden.

  ETHEREGE. Pox o’ Dryden, it’s based on you.

  Pause. The moment is dangerous.

  ROCHESTER. And do you tell the truth about me?

  ETHEREGE. I… I have attempted to show you as –

  ROCHESTER. Yes?

  ETHEREGE. Well, I enjoy your company, my lord, and I –

  ROCHESTER. You’ve made me endearing, haven’t you?

  ETHEREGE. Only the public can judge –

  ROCHESTER. Don’t smarm around, you’ve made me endearing.

  ETHEREGE. You’re an endearing sort of chap –

  ROCHESTER. So you haven’t told the truth. (Pause.) Good. Don’t want to go frightening people. We are the merry wits after all, ain’t we? We are the froth and fizz of the reign. Once people tumble to the fact that we’re not happy they’ll start to question the purpose of the whole enterprise, won’t they? Well done, George, I drink to you.

  ROCHESTER drinks coffee.

  ALCOCK sprawls on, propelled by MRS WILL.

  MRS WILL. Get your filching carcass out my shop!

  ROCHESTER. Mrs Will, on what account are you behaving so forcefully towards this drudge?

  MRS WILL. While my back was turned, this fellow helps himself to two shillings that I had set aside with a mind to paying the milkman who always calls on a Tuesday.

  ROCHESTER. A thief and a rogue.

  MRS WILL. My lord, you express it.

  ROCHESTER. Haven’t quite got the hang of the reign, have you? Since our sovereign rogerer supreme returned from France, what is it fifteen years ago, your brand of puritanical nit-picking has been in decline.

  MRS WILL. I will not employ a thief –

  ROCHESTER. Then I will. (To ALCOCK.) On your feet.

  ALCOCK stands. ROCHESTER reaches into his purse.

  How much was Mrs Will paying you?

  ALCOCK. Eight shillings a week, sir.

  ROCHESTER. Who talks of thieving? Here’s five pound in gold. Go to my man outside, his name is Roland, you will know him from his dismal manner and sluice-gate nostrils. Deliver this money into his hand, tell him I am dispensing with his services and that you, being appointed in his stead, should have his livery in exchange for your own rags. Go, see it is done.

  ALCOCK goes with the money.

  MRS WILL. He will run off with the gold and that will be your lesson.

  ROCHESTER. I do hope so. If he turn honest after coming within my orbit, I am not the malicious planet I had hoped. Mr Downs, reveal yourself, do you think I dispense wisely in this matter?

  DOWNS. If the rogue… if the rogue run off with the gold, well, then you have proved a point… but at your own loss… if he return in your livery… well, you have gained a servant who is a proven cheat. So you prove a different point but again at your own expense.

  ROCHESTER. You summarise well, Mr Downs, and in such a manner I deduce y
ou were trained at one of the count-the-angels-on-a-pinhead Cambridge colleges, King’s, was it not?

  DOWNS. It was, my lord –

  ROCHESTER. King’s yes, and yet, or possibly and so, you do not draw the general moral of the incident, which is?

  DOWNS. Which is…

  ROCHESTER. Which is that any experiment of interest in life will be carried out at your own expense. Mark it well.

  ALCOCK comes back in a footman’s livery.

  What? You are returned?

  ALCOCK. I am, sir.

  ROCHESTER. And where’s the money?

  ALCOCK. I gave it to your fellow and cashiered him.

  ROCHESTER. Then you are turned honest, I cannot support that.

  ALCOCK. I regret the deed’s honesty, my lord, but I considered that if I performed it and fell into your service, I would have more enjoyment of life.

  ROCHESTER. See, this fellow has the hang of the reign. I like this fellow exceedingly. What is your name?

  ALCOCK. Alcock, my lord.

  ROCHESTER. Better and better!

  ETHEREGE. Like master, like servant.

  SACKVILLE. Alcock, in his livery you stand proud.

  ROCHESTER. You shall drink and shag more than any servingman in the kingdom.

  ALCOCK. How shall I begin, my lord?

  ROCHESTER. Go at once and spend this money on a whore – no, not Jane – I wish her to be large and greasy – then, when you are done, return here.

  ALCOCK. My lord –

  ROCHESTER. Be gone!

  ALCOCK goes.

  ETHEREGE. Perhaps I’m getting on, but it does seem a trifle early for that particular indulgence.

  ROCHESTER. He will never be my servant if he don’t understand excess.

  JANE (perking up). Found a good bit.

  SACKVILLE. What?

  JANE. Them papers you give me. Found a good bit.

  ROCHESTER. How do you know?

  JANE. Smell. He done this bit before he had his dinner. See, next bit’s got a gravy stain. When men do a good bit they reward themselves straight away.

  ROCHESTER (taking papers). See, gents, an admirable critic! Let’s put you to the test and see what Mr Dryden was inspired to pen before his chop and gravy:

  ‘When I consider life ’tis all a cheat;

  Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit;’

  ETHEREGE. Oh profound!

  ROCHESTER. ‘Tum-ti-tum repay: da-de-da-former day:

  None would live past years again,

  Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;

  And, from the dregs of life, think to receive,

  What the first sprightly running could not give.

  I’m tired of waiting for this chemic gold,

  Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.’

  JANE. There you are, gents, good bit. Told you. Good day.

  ROCHESTER. Jane! Where shall I find you?

  JANE. The Playhouse. The yard. London’s small.

  JANE goes.

  SACKVILLE. The bastard. He wrote a good bit.

  ETHEREGE. He wrote a classic bit.

  SACKVILLE. How can he do this to me? Just when you think he’s written out.

  ROCHESTER. ‘I’m tired of waiting for this chemic gold,

  Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.’

  Well, gents, you came to mock the Laureate and he marched away with the bays. It would sober a man, would it not, if a man could but remember how it was to be sober.

  ETHEREGE. Bear up, Johnny. Racing at Epsom tomorrow.

  ROCHESTER. Tomorrow, my wife and I are invited for Pall-Mall in St James Park tomorrow.

  SACKVILLE. Your wife?

  ETHEREGE. You brought your wife to London?

  ROCHESTER. We are to sit for our portrait, an immortality which I would dearly avoid, but my mother demands it. But for now, gents, I long to see Otway’s new play this afternoon.

  SACKVILLE. Then we shall go.

  ETHEREGE. Otway. I do find it invigorating, all these new young men coming into the theatre.

  ROCHESTER. Mr Downs, will you come with us?

  DOWNS. I will, my lord, I love well a play.

  ROCHESTER. Downs, you have a dying countenance, but that’s no matter. First to the inn and then the Playhouse!

  ALL. The Playhouse!!

  They sweep off.

  Scene Two – Playhouse

  Immediately a spotlight picks out ELIZABETH BARRY, dressing in the tiring house for the role of Draxilla in Alcibiades. She is in her teens, dark with strong features. She talks to the audience.

  BARRY. The part of Draxilla in Otway’s Alcibiades is what is commonly called thankless. You are the second female which means you are courted late in the play and shoved out of the way early. The most important thing to remember is that the level of your passion must never rival that of Mrs Betterton who is – in the play – your best friend. If Mrs Betterton’s soul is in torment, then Elizabeth Barry’s must only be in mild distress. I do not complain, it is a living. But it is the kind of role where your fellow actors become uncommonly generous with advice culled from their years of experience on the stage.

  HARRIS comes on, a youngish actor on the make.

  HARRIS. Mrs Barry. Lizzie. There is an area of the play in which I feel I am able to help you.

  BARRY. That is very generous of you, Mr Harris.

  HARRIS. There is a lapse you are falling into – one which I suffered from in my own first roles, and the correction of which was effected by a more senior member of the company to whom I was eternally grateful.

  BARRY. What do you wish me to do?

  HARRIS. Act Three, Scene Three, at the camp. Where I protest my love. Let us essay the passage beginning ‘Lovers whose flights – ’

  BARRY picks up the passage immediately.

  BARRY. ‘Lovers whose flights so sublime pitches choose,

  Oft soar too high, and so their quarry loose.

  But you Sir know to moderate your height,

  Missing your game can eas’ly slack the flight.’

  HARRIS. ‘Such faint essays may fit a common flame,

  But my desires have a far nobler Aime,

  Religious honour, and a zeal that’s true,

  Rais’d by that Deity to which I sue.’

  BARRY. ‘Those who to deities their offerings pay,

  Make their addresses in an humbler way.

  Not in confidence of what they give,

  But modest hopes of what they shall receive – ’

  HARRIS. There, Mrs Barry. You must show the idea of modest hopes.

  BARRY. Except that the modest hopes are not mine, they would be yours.

  HARRIS. It makes no difference. The modest hopes of the devout supplicant are what possesses the audience at this moment.

  BARRY. But I am seeking to deter your love, am I not? Should I not show ’em that?

  HARRIS. No, Lizzie, you should not. Modest hopes, show me modest hopes. Again.

  BARRY follows HARRIS’s instructions.

  BARRY. ‘Those who to deities their offerings pay,

  Make their addresses in an humbler way.

  Not in confidence of what they give,

  But modest hopes of what they shall receive – ’

  HARRIS. Good, Lizzie, good. Modest hopes, modest hopes. Paint ’em a picture of what you’re saying.

  BARRY. Thank you, Mr Harris.

  LUSCOMBE, the stage manager, bustles by with her loud voice.

  LUSCOMBE. To your places, please, Mr Harris, I do hope you will favour us with the prologue in its entirety today and not merely the bits that happen to catch your fancy. All Act One beginners to your places. Ten seconds to curtain up. The curtain is UP!!!

  We go front of house. HARRIS comes onstage. ROCHESTER, ETHEREGE and DOWNS are together in a box. On the other side of the stage are the PIT ROWDIES – KEDGEO, ALCOCK and a VIZARD. JANE stands with the PIT, holding a basket of oranges. The AUDIENCE frequently overlap the ACTORS, esp
ecially HARRIS.

  JANE. Half past two in the afternoon. Hot, itchy. Three hundred partially washed people. We are not here to see a play. We are here to meet, gawp, flaunt, chatter, filch, ogle, buy and sell against a general background of blank verse.

  HARRIS. ‘To you known judges of what’s sence and wit,

  Our Authour swears he gladly will submit.

  But there’s a sort of things infest the Pit,

  That will be witty spite of Nature too,’

  DOWNS. Have a care, sir!

  ALCOCK. Oi, you! Gissanorange!

  JANE. Three for sevenpence.

  ALCOCK. I don’t want three I want one.

  HARRIS. ‘And to be thought so, haunt and pester you.

  Hither sometimes those would be Witts repair,

  In quest of you; where if you not appear,

  Crys one – Pugh! Damn me what do we do here?’

  ALCOCK. Kedgeo! Is Colin coming?

  KEDGEO. I dunno, do I?

  ALCOCK (to JANE). Give us two.

  JANE. Thass sixpence.

  VIZARD. Kedgeo, that your name?

  KEDGEO. Thass Colin there.

  ALCOCK. Colin!

  VIZARD. You won’t never find a tighter one than mine.

  HARRIS. ‘Strait up he starts, his Garniture then puts

  In order, so he Cocks and out he struts.’

  VIZARD. Or I’ll frig you right now, soft hands but firm.

  KEDGEO (to VIZARD). Do leave off.

  ALCOCK (throwing an orange to KEDGEO). Here, Kedge, juice your squeaker!

  KEDGEO. Gent, Tom!

  DOWNS. This prologue is fine, do you not think, Mr Etherege.

  ETHEREGE. Any dolt can write a prologue.

  DOWNS. Though to my taste the prologues in Paris are finer.

  HARRIS. ‘Wit has indeed a stranger been of late,

  ’Mongst its pretenders nought so strange as that.

  Both Houses too so long a Fast have known,

  That courest Non-sence goes most glibly down.’

  VIZARD. Mr Etherege! Take a nibble?

  ETHEREGE. Had my dinner, thank you, madam.

  DOWNS. Oh ha, George!

  HARRIS. ‘Thus though this Trifler never wrote before,

  Yet Faith he ventur’d on the common score:

  Since Non-sence is so generally allowed,

  He hopes that this may pass among the Crowd.’

  Applause for HARRIS. A little barracking.

  JANE. It was a quiet afternoon till Mrs Barry appeared. It was not just that she was bad, though she was worse than anything I had ever seen, but there was a superior manner to her badness that could not be borne.