THE CANTERBURY TALES
ACT ONE
Scene 1 The Tabard Inn, Southwark; April 1385
Ten minutes before the play is due to start, a group of musicians enter – the Tabard Consort. They unpack their instruments and make other musicianly preparations to one side of the stage. One of them starts to tune up, then another. Almost imperceptibly, their noises develop into what becomes the OVERTURE.
1: OVERTURE
2: SONG: TO CANTERBURY
1a The end of the overture leads into the Canterbury Anthem:
SONG: TO CANTERBURY (full cast)
To Canterbury, Walsingham;
Compostella, Jerusalem;
Tread the highway, hard and long;
Tell your story, sing your song.
Pardoner, Ploughman, Man of Law;
Summoner, Shipman, rich and poor…
Life’s a journey full of woe,
Pilgrims passing to and fro;
Knight or Yeoman, just the same;
Feed the hungry, lift the lame.
Miller and Merchant, Cook and Squire;
Doctor and Franklin, Monk and Friar…
He’s my brother, take his hand;
Make the time to understand;
Farce and fable, cry or laugh;
Take the grain and leave the chaff.
Black out, except for a single spot, centre. The actors freeze and the music plays quietly in the background, as Chaucer steps forward into the spot.
MUSIC CONTINUES UNDER CHAUCER’S SPEECH:
CHAUCER
When April brings its cool and freshening showers
To soak the earth and summon forth the flowers,
And fragrant breezes breathe their healthful air
In every holt and heath and village square,
Then spirits rise and the hot blood rages,
And people long to go on pilgrimages…
During Chaucer’s final lines the music has grown louder. The lights come up and the cast complete the anthem.
Manciple, Parson, Scholar, Nun;
Audience, actors, everyone…
To Canterbury, Walsingham;
Compostella, Jerusalem;
Tread the highway, hard and long;
Tell your story, sing your song.
During the final Chorus, the pilgrims move into groups and begin to engage in various activities such as checking luggage, consulting maps, or introducing themselves to others. At the same time, the tabard servants start to bustle about their business, carrying bags, answering queries, wiping tables, etc.
1b Enter the Host, Harry Bailey.
HOST Welcome! My name’s Harry Bailey and this is The Tabard. If you’re looking for a soft bed, hot food and the best beer this side of the Thames, you’ve come to the right place. For those of you who haven’t found it yet, Southwark Cathedral’s down Pig Lane and turn left.
Whispered approval from the Prioress’s entourage.
And the bar’s through there and turn right.
The Miller and Cook set off.
Opening time after supper!
Miller and Cook return.
We’re seriously short-handed in the bar, sad to say, it being the Spring Holiday. Oh, and another thing. We’re a trifle over-booked, but I’m sure you won’t mind sharing.
Varying reactions, including:
WIFE OF BATH I booked a single room.
HOST Complain to your travel agent. Now, my man will arrange for your bags to be taken up. Supper will be served in about ten minutes.
Over the ensuing hubbub, he calls –
Molly!
Molly comes running.
MOLLY Guvnor?
HOST Is this the lot?
MOLLY Hope so.
HOST Where are they stowed?
MOLLY Well…
As she reads from her list, we pick out the relevant groups. Some are chatting, some unpacking upstairs. At the same time, servants bustle around, collecting the remaining pilgrims’ luggage and taking them off to their rooms.
I put the Knight and his Squire upstairs in the posh room.
(cut to KNIGHT and SQUIRE)
KNIGHT (to the Squire, who is unbuckling him) No time to change, young ‘un. Back from Crusades. Disembark Dover; rendezvous Southwark 08.00 hours… (Thinks) Should have gone straight to Canterbury, come to think of it…
MOLLY Next door to them we’ve got the Franklin, plus an Oxford scholar and a Mr Chalker –
HOST That’s Chaucer.
MOLLY (pencilling in a correction) Right.
(cut to CHAUCER and FRANKLIN)
CHAUCER (to the Franklin) No, no. For a long time I was in the Civil Service. Writing was a bit of a pastime, really…
FRANKLIN (Laughing) Well, just so long as you’re not planning to put any of us in your books, eh?
They laugh together, the Franklin more wholeheartedly than Chaucer. The Franklin goes, leaving Chaucer alone, thoughtful…
HOST What about the Prioress? Looks a bit fussy.
MOLLY She’s in the annexe.
HOST Fine.
MOLLY Sharing with the woman from Bath.
HOST Are you serious? Not the one with the voice and the big hat?
MOLLY Problem?
HOST Not so long as they’re both prepared to broaden their experience a bit.
MOLLY This is a pilgrimage, guvnor.
HOST Fair point.
(cut to Wife, Prioress and Nun’s Priest)
WIFE OF BATH (to the Prioress)…Bath. Well, just outside actually: in the exurbs. My first three husbands left me very well provided for. Just as well. The fourth was uncontrollable – you know what men are like – (Gaffe! The Nun’s Priest gasps.) Sorry.
HOST Go on.
MOLLY And we’ve got all the clerical gentlemen in the long dorm.
HOST Usual collection?
MOLLY (Nods) Run of the mill: the Prioress’s private secretary; one monk – over there, stuffing his face; a Friar next to him – watch the women; oh, and the ugly one’s a Summoner, eats garlic. And the blond -
HOST Is a Pardoner. Yes, we’ve met. He tried to sell me a bone from Saint Peter’s finger this morning.
MOLLY I trust you didn’t purchase, guvnor.
HOST I did not. I merely observed that Saint Peter missed his vocation as a harpist. He’s got thirty-seven fingers that I know of. Carry on.
MOLLY Then Upstairs we’ve got a carpenter - moonlights as a Reeve, apparently; plus a college caterer –
HOST Manciple.
As Molly grudgingly repeats ‘Manciple’ and corrects it on his list, Harry looks over his shoulder and asks:
Who are ‘Robin’ and ‘Hodge of Ware’?
MOLLY A Miller and a Cook. At present they are harmlessly engaged in exchanging filthy stories.
(cut to MILLER and COOK)
MILLER (to the Cook) …So he marries this really young piece, right? Young enough to be his daughter –
MOLLY When they arrived they were drunk as skunks. So they’re dossing down tonight in the stable.
HOST Very prudent. Hang on, according to my list, we’ve also got a Doctor and a Lawyer. Where are they?
MOLLY Up on the balcony. Discussing the Stock Market, I should imagine.
(cut to DOCTOR and LAWYER)
DOCTOR (to the Lawyer) No, it’s like any of the caring professions, really. You get a lean year… Then along comes a filthy hot summer, a nice little dose of the Black Death, and you’re back in business… (laughs)
HOST I mean, where are they sleeping? You’ve not put them in the stable, have you?
MOLLY Don’t be daft, guv’nor.
HOST That’s a relief.
MOLLY They’re in your room. è MUSIC:The Host’s reaction is cut off by a derisory blast from the brass.
3: TROMBONE: DERISORY BLAST
4: INSTR REPRISE: TO CANTERBURY. ENDS WITH COCK CROWING.
1c
MUSIC: instrumental reprise of the anthem.
The last of the pilgrims disappear, led off by servants to their accommodation, leaving Chaucer alone on stage. He takes a notebook out of his pocket and is about to write something down when Molly enters to collect his bag and take him to his room. The pilgrims sleep, and the music ends with the cock crowing.
Scene 2: the Tabard; the following morning
2a Lights up as Harry enters with Chaucer, closely followed by a crowd of the other pilgrims.
HOST So let me get this straight. I get a free trip to Canterbury, all expenses paid; the condition being that I judge this story-telling contest, right?
Encouraging noises from the crowd.
CHAUCER Correct. And you provide a slap-up supper for the winner when we return.
HOST Stuff that!
CHAUCER All right, we’ll have a whip-round to cover it.
HOST You’re on.
General approving noises.
When do we start?
CHAUCER Whenever the horses are ready, I presume.
HOST No, no. I mean, when do we start the stories? I calculate you’re talking about thirty travellers, two tales there, two tales back, that’s a hundred and twenty tales. Get a couple in now while they’re loading up, or we’ve no chance of getting through them.
There is a pause as they acknowledge the sense of his argument.
So. Who’s first?
Each one anxious to avoid the honour, there is an awkward murmur of people excusing themselves and helpfully suggesting other people. The sound is interrupted by the clear, and rather feminine, tones of the Pardoner. He clearly sees this as a marketing opportunity.
THE PARDONER’S TALE
2b PARDONER Once upon a time… The Pardoner’s Tale!
REC MUSIC: MONEY (THAT’S WHAT I WANT)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6xkT7FMyTc
The on-stage pilgrims immediately form an audience, joined by others who have come down from their rooms and by the servants. The only exceptions are the actors who are about to become the characters in the Pardoner’s tale: these begin to don appropriate garments and collect props from the laundry baskets and remaining luggage. They all don their shades in sync with the word ‘avarice’.
…Once there was a gang of ne-er-do-wells, whose lives were dedicated to the pursuit of gluttony, sloth, wrath, lechery and – particularly – avarice… the sin of greed…
The pilgrims find spaces in which to make themselves comfortable, as we hear -
5: ‘MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL’ - FUNERAL VERSION
The music is the accompaniment to a 1950s gangland funeral. Four hoods – homburgs, shades – are pall-bearers to the coffin of a deceased colleague, whose funeral cortège slowly moves over the stage. As it passes from sight a news reporter detaches the chief mourner, an impressive-looking woman, wearing a black hat and veil – and shades.
REPORTER NBC News, Mrs Delmar. May I offer our condolences?
She nods curtly. One of the pall-bearers joins her. He is silent and menacing. His name is MARLON.
I believe you have been personally connected with each of the deceased in this recent spate of gangland killings, Mrs Delmar?
MRS DELMAR That is correct.
REPORTER So how do you feel?
MRS DELMAR What?
REPORTER How do you feel?
MRS DELMAR I am burying one of my longest-standing business associates. How do you think I should feel? Let me tell you something. Christopher was a good boy. Very good to his mother. Ask Father O’Malley. So he was no saint. Which of us can cast the first beam out of his own eye? You get me?
Reporter nods vigorously.
But he did not deserve this. And someone will pay.
REPORTER You think you know the perpetrators?
MRS DELMAR Not as of this moment in time, no. But Gloria Delmar does not sit back and let anybody mess about with her boys with impunity and get away with it. You take my meaning? Word is out.
She turns to go, thinks better of it and returns.
(straight to camera) Naturally we are cooperating fully with the instruments of the law.
REPORTER Thank you, Mrs Delmar.
MRS DELMAR It’s a pleasure.
She walks back to join the pall-bearers and they fall into a quiet, intense conversation.
REPORTER (Turning to camera)
So, as the gangland killings continue, the mystery deepens. But one thing is certain. The police will not be the only ones making an all-out effort to uncover the identity of this highly selective serial killer. The underworld looks after its own. This is [name], NBC News, Hoboken.
Light down on the reporter and up on Mrs Delmar and the pall-bearers.
TONY The market?
MRS DELMAR The market. That’s all the voice said. ‘Check the market.’
TONY Check it for what?
MRS DELMAR He didn’t say.
TONY And you didn’t recognise the voice?
MRS DELMAR Would I be standing here asking you to check the market if I recognised the voice?
MARLON If Mrs Delmar had recognised the voice, we’d be checking the voice.
MRS DELMAR Thank you, Marlon. So just do as I say and check the market, OK? It’s the only lead we have.
TONY OK, we check the market.
MRS DELMAR And be careful.
VINNIE You know us, Mrs Delmar. ‘Careful’ is our watchword.
TONY Our middle name.
LEO It’s on the side of our trucks.
6: ‘MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL’ - ‘CRACKLY RECORD’ VERSION
She nods. And, as they turn to go, we hear a cracked record fading up, of the Andrews Sisters singing MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVCwBtFHVLo
It fades down to leave the sound of a street market. Every minute or so a subway train is heard to pass on the viaduct above and its lights flicker across the set.
An old blind man is selling matches by one of the (imagined) stalls. His cry of ‘matches’ is weak and pathetic. VINNIE spots him first.
VINNIE By the papers, Tony.
TONY What about him?
VINNIE He’s new. I’ve not seen him down here before.
TONY Probably an economic migrant, Vinnie. One of them bogus asylum seekers. Leave him. He can’t tell us anything.
MATCH-SELLER You want some matches, Sir? Light your cigarettes?
VINNIE (With an edge) I don’t smoke. I have given up.
MATCH-SELLER Maybe you want a barbecue? A garden bonfire? A do-it-yourself cremation?
TONY restrains the infuriated VINNIE and the old man laughs.
You boys want to be careful. Too many of your friends have lacked sufficient care of late.
He shuffles forward with the aid of his stick and, placing his hands on TONY’s face, touches his features gently. He nods.
There is a music shop. Closed now. Recession, what can you do, eh? Through the subway arches by the bagels.
LEO Tony! The law!
TONY I’m warning you! If we don’t find anything –
MATCH-SELLER Have a nice day! Take care, now!
They go, leaving him alone.
Take care. Take very good care.
7: ‘____________________________________’ - ‘CRACKLY RECORD’ VERSION OF ANOTHER TUNE
As the music fades, we are in an old disused shop, represented by boxes and crates littering the floor. The three men are ransacking it, throwing old newspapers around, breaking open crates.
VINNIE Nothing! I’m for going back and offing that old guy right now.
TONY But he knew something, Vinnie. I swear he knew something.
VINNIE He knew a soft touch.
LEO has been scrutinising a newspaper, picked up from the floor. He reads painfully:
LEO ‘Secaucus man wins a quarter of a million. It will not change my life in any way, he says…’
TONY It’d sure as hell change my life, I can tell you…
VINNIE sits and lights a cigarette, offers one to TONY, who accepts and finds a box to sit on away from the others.
Women… cars… booze… Disney World… (Unable to shift the box he wants to sit on, he kicks at it angrily.) Jeez! What’s in this? Come on, get it open, Leo. (As LEO forces the lid with a crow-bar - ) I’ve had enough of this game, Vinnie. I’m not kidding, I’m on the point of turning straight, I don’t mind admitting it.