The Libertine (NHB Modern Plays) Read online

  JANE. But who is to be little Clytoris?

  ROCHESTER. Clytoris is silent in this scene. Perhaps, Alcock, you could stand in her place to remind us she is there.

  ALCOCK. No, my lord.

  ROCHESTER. I beg your pardon.

  ALCOCK. My lord, I am Alcock. Little Clytoris is beyond

  my range.

  ROCHESTER. Alcock! If I command you to impersonate temporarily the seat of pleasure for the whole of womankind I do not expect you to demur.

  ALCOCK. Very well, my lord. But it must be understood that I play Clytoris under sufferance.

  ALCOCK drags himself onstage.

  LUSCOMBE. May I formulate a small question at this juncture?

  ROCHESTER. Yes, Molly.

  LUSCOMBE. Are these the dildoes we will be using for the performance?

  ROCHESTER. They are inadequate. I will provide more suitable items from my personal collection.

  JANE. It is a very fine collection.

  LUSCOMBE. I am relieved to hear those words.

  HARRIS. I am not in this scene?

  ROCHESTER. You are not, Mr Harris, but you can watch and learn. Shall we make a start?

  ETHEREGE and DOWNS come on.

  DOWNS. We’re most damnably, miserably sorry, Johnny.

  ETHEREGE. Couldn’t do it. Simply couldn’t find one Windsor wanton, never mind two who might fit the bill.

  ROCHESTER is very angry.

  ROCHESTER. I NEED TWO MORE WOMEN.

  DOWNS. Windsor is a quiet town, my lord –

  ROCHESTER. Alcock, you’re on. And you, Molly. Do not cross me further, anyone. The scene! ‘The Queen is frigged by Lady Officina, all the rest pulling out their dildoes and frig in point of honour.’

  The WOMEN prepare themselves.

  BARRY. ‘So no more yet. You do not make it spirt –

  You frig, as if you were afraid to hurt.’

  JANE. ‘Madam, the fault in Virtuoso lies.’ Who is Virtuoso?

  LUSCOMBE. Just say the lines.

  ROCHESTER. Virtuoso is the merkin and dildo-maker to the Royal Family, a secure position of employment, I believe.

  JANE. ‘Madam, the fault in Virtuoso lies

  He should have made it of a longer size.

  This dildo by a hand full is too short.’

  BARRY. ‘Let him with speed to send for to the Court.’

  LUSCOMBE. ‘Madam, your dildoes are not to compare

  With what I’ve seen – ’

  JANE. ‘Indeed they’re paltry ware.’

  LUSCOMBE. ‘Short dildoes leave the pleasure half undone.’

  JANE. Um, my lord, sorry for stopping, but I’m a bit confused –

  ROCHESTER. Yes, Jane –

  JANE. I don’t understand how we frig ‘in point of honour’.

  ETHEREGE. Just frig yourself, dear.

  JANE. But if we are to frig ourselves in point of honour, is that not a different mode of frigging?

  ETHEREGE. Frigging is frigging.

  ROCHESTER. The stage direction is a kind of literary joke, to amuse the reader.

  HARRIS. It’s a play.

  ROCHESTER. Sometimes an author will indulge himself with his stage directions, writing something which he knows cannot be literally achieved on the stage –

  HARRIS. Ah, Lord Rochester, I am glad you said that, because I wished to pose such a question about the final stage direction in this very scene.

  ROCHESTER. Yes?

  HARRIS. Well, presumably, this direction is similar to the one to which Jane just referred. I mean where it is not possible in performance.

  ROCHESTER. It seems straightforward enough.

  HARRIS (reading script). ‘Then dance six naked men and women, the men doing obedience to the women’s cunts, kissing and touching them often, the women in like manner to the men’s pricks, kissing and dandling their codds, and then fall to fucking, after which the women sigh and the men look simple and so sneak off. The End of the Second Act.’

  ETHEREGE applauds.

  ROCHESTER. A strong scene, an eminently playable scene and though I say it myself, a climactic one.

  HARRIS. In my mind it raises a question.

  ROCHESTER. Yes, Mr Harris?

  HARRIS. My question is in two parts, the necessity of posing the second being dependent on your answer to the first –

  ROCHESTER. Please continue, Mr Harris –

  HARRIS. Will the equipment from your private collection of which you spoke be available to the gentlemen for strapping around the middle in the execution of this scene?

  ROCHESTER. No, no. Mr Harris. I feel the scene should be given, so to speak, in the flesh.

  HARRIS. Well, it would seem my second question is necessary after all: is it envisaged that we will give two performances of the entertainment on the King’s birthday?

  ROCHESTER. No, Mr Harris.

  HARRIS. I am glad to hear that from the author.

  ROCHESTER. With the dress rehearsal, the Court performance and the public showing, I envisage three.

  HARRIS weighs this.

  HARRIS. I don’t know if you have met my regular understudy, Mr Lightman, but he is a most dependable fellow –

  ROCHESTER. At the moment we are simply preparing a reading of the play for the King’s approval. Once we have earned this regal approbation –

  Suddenly CHARLES appears.

  CHARLES. You’re here. Don’t stop on my account. I do so love the theatre and it is next to impossible to find any in Windsor.

  ROCHESTER. Your Majesty, you are a little early, we intend to present the reading to the Court at four o’clock –

  CHARLES. Is that so? You know I do have the most extraordinary difficulty telling the time these days, can’t think why, seem to remember spending a colossal pile of money on timepieces a few years ago –

  ROCHESTER. Your Majesty, we will be most delighted to perform for you after dinner –

  CHARLES. No, no, I am here now. ‘Down with Time’ say I for one, and I fancy I am not alone in these sentiments. Fall to. Rehearse. I understand there is to be a representation of a Royal Court. I will be able to assist if there are any blemishes in verisimilitude, wouldn’t want that, would we?

  ROCHESTER. Your Majesty will be at liberty to make any amendments to the play after the private performance –

  CHARLES. Rehearse, I say. I commissioned this play. What’s the good of being a patron of the arts if you can’t get some when you fancy it, eh?

  ROCHESTER. Let us return to the beginning of the dildo scene.

  The WOMEN cluster together. HARRIS, off the hook, slopes into a corner.

  CHARLES. Where’s this fellow going?

  HARRIS. Your Majesty, I am not required in this scene.

  CHARLES. But you are to play the King, no?

  HARRIS. I am, Your Majesty –

  CHARLES. And what is the name of the King?

  HARRIS. He is called… Bolloxinion, My Lord. King… of the imaginary Kingdom of Sodom.

  CHARLES. Laddy, it may be imaginary to you –

  ROCHESTER. There are no scenes, Your Majesty, which Mr Harris can essay without his fellow actors who –

  CHARLES. Does this King not have a soliloquoy, a prologue

  or so?

  ROCHESTER. He does, Your Majesty.

  CHARLES. Well, I would fain hear it. Then I will retire. And let you have more TIME.

  Pause.

  ROCHESTER. Mr Harris. If you would be so good, let us hear the speech that begins ‘Since I have buggered human arse – ’

  CHARLES. No, no, no. You know the one I want to hear. The one he does at the start of the play, the opening to your Actus Primus, let us hear that.

  ROCHESTER. Your Majesty, I do not understand how your familiarity with the work is so great.

  CHARLES. Let us hear the speech. And let it be… kingly.

  ROCHESTER nods to HARRIS. HARRIS, in agonies, prepares.

  HARRIS. ‘Thus in the Zenith of my Lust I reign:

 
I eat to swive, and swive to eat again;

  Let other Monarchs, who their sceptres bear

  To keep their subjects less in love than fear,

  Be slaves to crowns, my Nation shall be free –

  My Pintle only shall my sceptre be;

  My laws shall act more pleasure than command

  And with my Prick, I’ll govern all the land.’

  Pause.

  CHARLES. It’s very good, you know, Johnny, only this fellow ain’t kingly enough. You know I have been a King a decent while, a while longer than some people might allow –

  He looks around, sniffing Republicans.

  – and, what is more, I have knocked around among the kingly sort, and there is a thing you find with your kingly fucker… and that is that your kingly fucker expects to be obeyed, understand, Mr Harris?

  HARRIS. Yes, Your Majesty.

  CHARLES. But the fellow you showed me there, verged on the nervy side of kingship, a thing I have observed but little in the regal type, d’y’see?

  HARRIS. I do see, Your Majesty –

  CHARLES. So let’s have it again: ‘My laws shall act’ and so on.

  HARRIS. ‘My laws shall act more pleasure than commandAnd with my prick, I’ll govern all the land.’

  CHARLES. This portrayal, Mr Harris, would it be based on any particular monarch?

  HARRIS swallows air.

  Or is it more your general notion of majesty you are seeking to pillory?

  ROCHESTER. Thank you, ladies, thank you, Mr Harris, the rehearsal is at an end.

  No one moves.

  CHARLES. Well, you heard the orders of your author. If an author can’t get what he wants in his own theatre, it’s a damn poor lookout, ain’t it?

  HARRIS takes this as a dismissal, bows and exits. ALL but ROCHESTER follow him.

  ROCHESTER. You commission me to write for you and yet I find I am not trusted.

  CHARLES. And I was right. I present you with an opportunity. I command you to seize this chance to fulfil your shining promise. And what do you give me?

  CHARLES takes a copy of the play out of his coat and throws it on the floor.

  A pornographic representation of a Royal Court where the men deal only in buggery and the women’s sole object of interest is the dildo.

  ROCHESTER. A monument to your reign.

  Pause.

  CHARLES. You will leave Windsor now. You are prohibited from the precincts of the Court in London. If you show your face, it will be the Tower.

  CHARLES goes. ROCHESTER shouts after him.

  ROCHESTER. You are so limited. Can you not think of anything else to do to me?

  BARRY comes back on.

  BARRY. He will relent.

  ROCHESTER. I don’t want him to relent. I want him hurt.

  BARRY. Do you care for me at all?

  ROCHESTER. I have loved you from the beginning.

  BARRY. But thus love does not alter or inspire you.

  ROCHESTER. That’s not the truth –

  BARRY. Then why does it not free you from your past? You mock and batter the King as if he were a father you were doomed forever to enrage. You are diminished by this battle. It holds you back from the sublime. I can pacify the wounded animal in you but you must let me near it. If you loved me you would engage with me.

  ROCHESTER. I can now engage with nothing. I am banished and must return to my wife in the country –

  BARRY. No, you must not! You will not take the King’s displeasure as a sign to run from me. Stay close to London where I may lay easy hands on you. And I will sue for you to the King so he may quickly change his mind.

  ROCHESTER. Lizzie? I would be pacified.

  She holds out a hand to him. They exit together.

  Scene Nine – Epsom

  DOWNS. To become a wit, a blade, a spark. The very word, spark, a hot splinter of fashion to scorch the town and burn it to the ground. There was never another way for me. I live for the cocky swagger: toss the head, grind the loins and gob the pavings. What though they had kept me two years at my Cambridge Latin, learning to parse and wrangle, I came to London bent on cutting a figure with the hot boys. A lecherous leer to the traffic and a stamp of the boot on the alehouse floor: I lived for these Friday-night gestures and thought they would satisfy till I was twenty-five and in my grave. But for Billy Downs to hang on the coat-tails of my Lord Rochester and the Earl of Dorset, such a thing stood several leagues beyond my dreams. My mother writes to me, asks what I am doing in this dreadful town. I cannot reply, for there is no setting down with ink and paper that I drink till I am sick, mump and quarrel till I duel and wench till I am slapped or satisfied. I am the youngest of three brothers. The eldest has the estate and the second is a canting priest. Between them they have done me out of wealth and piety. There is nothing left to me but spark, so spark I shall. Today we jolly forth to the Epsom Races, and though my jerkin has not the force of my companions’ topcoats, yet I keep my end up with a clutch of lively sallies and modern curses that fan the fading embers of their youth.

  General lighting comes up. DOWNS and ETHEREGE in a huddle at the racetrack. SACKVILLE approaches, breathless.

  ETHEREGE. You lose, lose, lose all afternoon but you must never give up hope.

  SACKVILLE. I have the word from the paddock. Danny’s on the big grey and he’s frisky round the chops.

  ETHEREGE. The word from the paddock!

  DOWNS. Buggers stable boys for sixpence and they tip him donkeys for vengeance.

  SACKVILLE. Ten pounds says the grey’s the briskest.

  ETHEREGE. Middlesex, fuck you.

  DOWNS (looking off). Seven to four the grey, fives Vanishing Spark, a hundred to eight the field.

  ETHEREGE. I at least have bet like a man, my last thirty pound on the Duke of Newcastle’s nag.

  ROCHESTER and BARRY come on, arm in arm, utterly involved in each other.

  DOWNS. You’re a regular Knight of the Elbow, George. Who’s carrying your money, Johnny?

  No reaction from ROCHESTER.

  SACKVILLE. It queases my guts to see a gent so deep in a baggage.

  ETHEREGE. I hate watching love. If I were King I would publish an Act of Parliament limiting the disease to private, windowless rooms.

  DOWNS. They’re up to the line, they’re under orders, and… they’re off!!

  In the following, SACKVILLE, ETHEREGE, BARRY and DOWNS speak at once, ROCHESTER separately.

  ETHEREGE. Not there, not there, no point in being there, get round the grey you can’t get THROUGH him –

  SACKVILLE. Go, you beauty, don’t do too much too soon, hold him back, hold him back, save something for the last furlong, the damned hothead –

  BARRY. Oh you are a fine, handsome animal, give me a run for the little coin I have thrown on you, give me a run, you sweetheart fucker –

  DOWNS. Go on, Vanishing Spark, go my Spark, go you Sparky Spark, go, go, go, give him the whip, don’t just show it to him, make him run for me –

  ROCHESTER. Why weighs my money on a horse’s back so  hard?

  Thus grac’d, the thoroughbred turns meat for knacker’s yard.

  ETHEREGE. You are trying to win, that is the point, do you not comprehend, simple fact, arrive at winning post ahead of all other animals, you will not do that if you get stuck behind –

  SACKVILLE. Oh smooth as silk, as satin, oh yes, Danny, nice move, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, oh you are a whoreson cunning, but watch, watch on the rails, do you not see, on the rails, are you blind –

  BARRY. Why do they match my fine horse with such a tawdry jockey? He is like a monkey on its back. If I were to act as he rides I would be in the street soon enough –

  DOWNS. Spark, Spark, Spark, Spark, go, go, no, go, go, where is the run? Where has the run in him gone? Get him go, get him go, Spark, Spark –

  ROCHESTER. Doomed with my gold, the jockey, cunning racer

  Becomes at once a green apprentice chaser.

  ETHEREGE. YOU CUNT!! You ar
e doing this deliberately, who has bribed you, you unspeakable, useless shit, you should have dying vermin draped hourly around your genitalia in perpetuity!!

  SACKVILLE. OH YOU BEAUTY!! You knew all the time, let him run, let him run, smooth as velvet, smooth as Nelly’s cunt, oh you have him, Danny, I could roger you up the bum, you beauty, you beauty, YOU BEAUTY!!

  BARRY. Fourth! Can you do no better than that. I do not like to associate myself with something that is fourth. I am aspiring to greatness. Fourth!

  DOWNS. Vanishing Spark, go on, Vanishing Spark, go on, go on, where, where, where, WHERE IS IT, where is the run, where is the spark, where is the spark gone in you, YOU DISEASE!!

  ROCHESTER. Once more the death knell of my hopes is struck  and rings

  I should expect no better from the sport of kings.

  A tableau of victory and defeat, then a change. The last race is over. They are kicking their way back through the day’s rubbish.

  ETHEREGE. I hate racing, Sport of Kings, sport of peasants –

  SACKVILLE. Come on, Georgie, you like it when you win –

  ETHEREGE. Must have seen the backside off sixty pound today, could have BOUGHT a horse –

  SACKVILLE. I’ll stand you a fat dinner at the inn if you just stop your whining –

  ROCHESTER (suddenly stops still).It must have been one of you. Yesterday, with the King. I’ve just seen it. One of you betrayed me. Yes?

  DOWNS. Johnny?

  ROCHESTER. Showed a copy to the King. George. It was you, wasn’t it?

  ETHEREGE. What?

  ROCHESTER. I dispatch you and Billy to search for women but you don’t go, instead you take the play to –

  ETHEREGE. Johnny, much as I like you, I do try not to soil my hands carrying your actual writing around –

  ROCHESTER. He knows EXACTLY where to find us in a THOUSAND-ACRE PARK. Could not bear the threat, could you, of my writing a play –

  ETHEREGE. A play? You don’t think that counts as a play?

  BARRY. I did it. (Pause.) I showed the King my copy the night before.

  ROCHESTER. It seems I may have been mistaken, George, you know.

  The MERRY GANG await further apology but it’s not forthcoming.

  And why might you have done that, Lizzie?