Wright - Cressida

Nicholas Wright CRESSIDA NICK HERN BOOKS London www.nickhernbooks.co.uk ContentsCressida was produced by the Almeida Theatre at the Albery Theatre, London on 24 March 2000, with the following cast:

I like the music. Fuck me, what a dull remark. Music do I hear? Thats better. Thats more like it. As I lie alone. I lie. Recline. Unheard. Unseen. Unseen.

If anyone woke me, if they asked me what it was like to die, Id say: its like some hideous long soliloquy. On and on, with never a sign of a final couplet. While with every word you speak, you feel more ludicrous because there isnt a bugger on stage to hear you. Tries out a speech: In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece, the princes orgulous... Tries another: Now is the summer... Tries another: Now is the summer...

Start again. My father, lately deposed as King of France, hath sent this letter. I shall peruse in private. Who am I talking to? How do I know theyre watching? How in the name of logic do I address a group of people of whose very existence I am unaware? Do I ignore them? Do I transfix them with my basilisk eye? WILLIAM BLAGRAVE, forties, dapper, descends on another cloud. As always, he carries a little briefcase. BLAGRAVE.

Master Shank. Im sorry to find you ill. You sent for me. SHANK. Good day to you, Master... Blagrave.

At your feet are seven sheets of paper. Find them. BLAGRAVE finds them. BLAGRAVE. This is a will. SHANK. SHANK.

Well spotted. Read it. BLAGRAVE skims a page, then another. BLAGRAVE. Did you really pay out thirty pounds for William Trigg? SHANK. Is that what it says? BLAGRAVE.

You wrote it. SHANK. Then I did. Thirty big ones pissed away. I liked his style. Bouncy lad with a big loud voice.

But he was only any good at saucy wenches. Couldnt touch the tragic stuff. The biggest laugh he ever got was when he went on in Titus with his hands cut off and his tongue pulled out. And his father, brothers, somebody asked who did it. And he couldnt tell them. He laughs so much he keeps having to stop.

So they put a... No, I mustnt laugh, Ill go funny again. They put a... Put a stick in his mouth. Like a walking-stick. And then he wrote their...

God, we laughed. He quietens down. I note he hasnt come to see me. BLAGRAVE. He said he had. SHANK.

Then hes a liar. Nobody comes to see me. BLAGRAVE. What about Stephen? SHANK. Stephen would not pat my back if I were choking on my vomit. I gave my lifetimes hoard of craft and graft to that ungrateful toad.

I gave what nobody else could find. I gave my heart. And he betrayed it. Stop reading. BLAGRAVE. SHANK. SHANK.

I cant think why. BLAGRAVE. Its an illuminating footnote to an unusual life. SHANK. Skip to the end. I want you to sign.

I want you to certify that you are you, that I am I, that Im not mad and that Ive signed it in your presence. BLAGRAVE. Youve signed it already. SHANK. Bollocks. Look. SHANK. SHANK.

No, I believe you. Have you any other reservations? BLAGRAVE. Stephen was here. I met him a moment ago. He was coming out of the door as I arrived. SHANK. SHANK.

What door? Where are we? BLAGRAVE. At your house. In Cripplegate, London. SHANK looks at his own cloud, then at BLAGRAVEs. SHANK. BLAGRAVE. BLAGRAVE.

Youre confused. Youve had an apoplexy. SHANK. More than one, old shiner. Three in a week. Sign. Sign.

BLAGRAVE opens his briefcase, produces a pen, unscrews a bottle of ink. Signs the will. Meanwhile: BLAGRAVE. This will is you. Its what you are, its what youre worth, and in a day or a week or a month at most it will be all thats left of you. What puzzles me is why you sent for me, of all the men in the world, to put my name to it? SHANK.

I have the pleasure of knowing Ive ruined your day. BLAGRAVE. Thats not true. SHANK. Then try another. BLAGRAVE.

What I hoped, was that youd realised, after all those years of conflict, that I admire you. And that I treasure what you stand for. SHANK. Are you here to justify your actions or to sign my will? BLAGRAVE. The latter. Do it. BLAGRAVE. I have. I have.

SHANK (disbelieving). Show me. BLAGRAVE hands him the will. SHANK looks at it. I forget things because I am in a rage. BLAGRAVE.

With me? SHANK. No, not with you. He closes his eyes. BLAGRAVE. With Stephen? SHANK opens his eyes. SHANK.

Trigg was first. BLAGRAVE. You said you liked him. SHANK. Listen, will you? Trigg was the first to come off-stage. That day.

Goffe came next. He was the worst. Honey was best. Till then. But Honey was always ripping his gown to shreds and throwing his wig in the privy. They start to ascend on their clouds. They start to ascend on their clouds.

Which meant that Trigg was stuck with Goffe, whose habit, since he could not comprehend the human dramas happening all around him, was to talk in terms which were incomprehensible to anyone else. They disappear. End of scene. Scene Two The boys dressing-room at the Globe. The afternoons show has just come down. WILLIAM TRIGG, a stocky, cheerful boy in waiting-womans costume, is unpinning and taking off his wig.

ALEX GOFFE, a plain, studious boy, dressed as a Spanish princess, is being undressed by JHON, a very old dresser of seventy or so. Both boys are fifteen. Their make-up is crude. Neither boy gives JHON any help, and both have a way of dropping things on the floor and leaving him to pick them up. Meanwhile: ALEX. Dont know. ALEX. ALEX.

Are they effulgent images, full of colour and life? Or are they merely squiggly trails of ink? TRIGG. I cant imagine. Why dont you talk so people can understand you? ALEX. Ill put it simply. When youre acting, do you think about whatever it is the words describe? Or do you just remember the sheet of paper that you learned them from? TRIGG. I do both.

Like any normal person. And if youre talking about that saucepan speech, I know it forwards, backwards and upside-down. ALEX. Then why did you dry up half-way through? TRIGG. I didnt! I was waiting for the laugh. ALEX.

There wasnt one. TRIGG. There would have been! There was a rustle of breath all over the house, I heard it, everyone heard it, and theyd opened their mouths for a great big burst of laughter. And you cut in, you bastard! It went flat on the floor! Ill never forgive you, never!