Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits
A Musicalfrom Something Rotten!
Nick (Spoken): What the heck are musicals?
Nostradamus (Spoken):
It appears to be a play where the dialogue stops
And the plot is conveyed through song
Nick (Spoken): Through song?
Nostradamus: Yes.
Nick: Wait, so an actor is saying his lines and out of nowhere he just starts singing?
Nostradamus: Yes.
Nick: Well that is the
(Singing) Stupidest thing that I have ever heard
You're doing a play, got something to say
So you sing it?
It's absurd
Who on earth is going to sit there while an actor breaks into song
And what possible thought could the audience think
Other than "This is horribly wrong"
Nostradamus (Spoken): Remarkably? They won't think that
Nick (Spoken:) Seriously? Why not?
Nostradamus: Because it's a musical
A musical
And nothing's as amazing as a musical
With song and dance
And sweet romance
And happy endings happening by happenstance
Bright lights, stage fights, and a dazzling chorus
You wanna be great?
Then you gotta create a musical
Nick (Spoken): I don't know
I find it hard to believe that people would actually pay to see something like this…
ACTOR 1O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire,
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit that hath dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this Wooden 0 the very casques,
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
0, pardon! Since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Actor 4Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,.
And make imaginary puissance:
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs in the receiving earth,
For ‘tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hourglass; for the which supply
Admit me chorus to this history;
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
ACTOR 2Friends, Romans, Countrymen: Lend me your ears.
I come to bury Shakespeare not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good isoft enterred with their bones,
So let it be with Shakespeare.
ACTOR 3Peace. I will stop your mouth. We come to praise Shakespeare, not to bury him.
ACTOR 4I came to bury him.
ACTOR 10He's been buried for over 400 years.
ACTOR 2Of course, we come to praise Shakespeare. He wrote the greatest poetry ever written.
ACTOR 4Except for the Bible.
ACTOR 2Everybody knows that.
ACTOR 3Really? And do you think everybody knows more people have bought Shakespeare's poetry than any other book?
ACTOR 4Except for the Bible.
ACTOR 5And that translations of Shakespeare are available in more languages than any other book?
ACTOR 4Except for the Bible.
ACTOR 3And that includes languages like Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Tartar....
ACTOR 7And Xhosa.
ACTOR 3Xhosa
ACTOR 2Guensheit. And many people believe Shakespeare's poetry has had more influence on our lives than any other book.
ALL ACTORSExcept for the Bible.
ACTOR 10To quote Alexandre Dumas: "Shakespeare is the poet who created the most-after God."
ACTOR 12An overstatement? Maybe. But we do know Shakespeare has spoken to audiences for four centuries.
ACTOR 11Just mention the name William Shakespeare and six little words come to mind.
ACTOR 12"All the world's a stage"?
ACTOR 1That's five words. No. I'm talking about:
ACTOR 7"To be or not to be."
ACTOR 8That was my line!
ACTOR 2That's the thing about Shakespeare. He always has the perfect words for the perfect moment. And if he doesn't have the perfect word, he just makes one up. Words like “honorificabilitudinitatibus". (Song to tune of"Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious".) And he created the word "laughable".
ACTOR 3And "critic".
ACTOR 1And "monumental". You probably quote Shakespeare every day without even realizing it.
ACTOR 14For example: if you have a hunch that is so strong that you can "feel it in your bones", you're quoting from?
ACTOR 12Timon of Athens.
ACTOR 9Timon of Athens? That's "Greek to me".
ACTOR 8Julius Caesar.
ACTOR 7That: was a "foregone conclusion"
ACTOR 1Othello.
Actor 5Or,gentlemen: if the ladies are always after you, calling and chasing so that finally when the "time is ripe".
ACTOR 4Henry IV, Part One
ACTOR 6You "go like the wind".
ACTOR 11 A Midsummer Night's Dream
Actor 8If you are waiting with “Bated breath”
Actor 6The Merchant of Venice
Actor 18or need to “Break the ice”
Actor 10The Taming of the Shrew
ACTOR 9Leaving the poor ladies on "the brink of tears”
ACTOR 12 Timon of Athens
ACTOR 5Moaning about your "cold heart'
ACTOR 3Antony and Cleopatra
ACTOR 17Which leaves them "'chilled to the bone".
ACTOR 15Pericles
ACTOR 14To which you say: "take it or leave it"
ACTOR 13King Lear
ACTOR 11 Until you meet the one lady who isyour "be-all and end-all".
ACTOR 18Macbeth
ACTOR 2And you have a "change of heart"
ACTOR 20 Measure for Measure
ACTOR 8Or "by the same token".
ACTOR 2Trolius and Cressida
ACTOR 7A "heart of gold".
ACTOR 21 Henry V
ACTOR 10All the while you're quoting Shakespeare.
ACTOR 9Or, ladies: "Prick up your ears."
ACTOR 17 The Tempest
ACTOR 2If you find that "the worm turns”
ACTOR 16 Henry VI, Part Three
ACTOR 13 Tell him never mind, because you don't want him. You want "a man among men".
ACTOR 3Anthony and Cleopatra
ACTOR 7A man who is "second to none"
ACTOR 19Comedy of Errors
ACTOR 7And you may not know him yet but you can see him in "Your mind's eye”
ACTOR 9Hamlet
ACTOR 8And when you do meet, it is "love at first sight.”
ACTOR 7As You Like It
ACTOR 14And he makes you feel "safe and sound".
ACTOR 19Comedy of Errors
ACTOR 16And "not to mince matters".
ACTOR 1Othello
ACTOR 17You live a "charmed life, together”.
ACTOR 18Macbeth
ACTOR 1Until, alas, he "breathes his last".
ACTOR 5Henry VI, Part Two
ACTOR 11You're quoting Shakespeare.
ACTOR 18And if, as you go through life, your motto is "no sweat".
ACTOR 17The Tempest
ACTOR 12Once again you're quoting Shakespeare. Or if your teacher is the “Devil incarnate”
ACTOR 14 Titus Andronicus
ACTOR 21no its Henry V
ACTOR 14 Titus Andronicus
ACTOR 6You are both right. Stop it.
ACTOR 19The importance of Shakespeare to our language, our thoughts, our lives led twentieth century poet William Carlos Williams to observe: "Shakespeare is the greatest University of all." Performing artists obviously agree. Most actors would rather act in a Shakespeare play than perform work by any other playwright. Shakespeare's plots have been reworked into such diverse film scripts as "Forbidden Planet" and "10 Things I hate about You". And Japanese director Akira Kirwasawa has mixed Shakespeare with Japanese history to come up with movies like "Throne of Blood"
ACTOR 12One of Shakespeare's plays that has no romantic intrigue is Julius Caesar.
ACTOR 2I love Julius Caesar. This is the one where I get to say: "Speak hands for me!"
ACTOR 18But not yet. In this play, Shakespeare turns his attention to the scrutiny of politics and power.
ACTOR 1The date is March 15: the Ides of March. Caesar is on his way capitol when he is stopped by a Soothsayer who proclaims: "Beware the Ides of March". Caesar is frightened but proceeds.
ACTOR 7Once there, the conspiring senators slowly surround him until one cries out:
ACTOR 2Speak hands for me!
ACTOR 2/ACTOR 18And stabs Caesar.
ACTOR 3One by one, the others follow his lead- When Caesar sees Brutus is about to stab him, he moans: "Et tu, Brute" and dies. News of the assassination quickly spreads throughout the city. Within moments people are crowding the forum, demanding to know what has happened.
ACTOR 1In Marc Antony's funeral orations Shakespeare created the perfect political speech and the perfect politician.
ACTOR 2Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar not to praise
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft inter-red with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men,
Come I to speak at Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
On the feast of Luprical,
I thrice presented Caesar a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refused. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious.
And sure he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak of what I know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you now to mourn for him?
Ojudgement. Thou art fled to brutish beasts
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
ACTOR 2It may surprise you to learn that Shakespeare did write more comedies than tragedies. So of course, we take for granted he had a keen sense of humor.
ACTOR 11At least we hope so.
ACTOR 2With that in mind, we'd like to present a personal favorite of ours; two scenes from one of Shakespeare's earliest plays: The Comedy of Errors.
ACTOR 3Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown;
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;
I am not Adriana nor thy wife.
The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow
That never words were music to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savored in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or looked, or touched, or carved to thee.
How comes it now, my husband, 0, how comes it,
That thou art then estranged from thyself?
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me!
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick
Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious,
And that this body, consecrate to thee,
By ruffian lust should be contaminated
Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,
And hurl the name of husband in my face,
And tear the stained skin off my harlot-brow,
And from my false hand cut the wedding ring
And break it with a deep divorcing vow?
I know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it.
I am possessed with an adulterate blot,
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:
For if we two be one and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then, fair league and truce with thy true bed,
I live unstained, thou undishonored.
ACTOR 5Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town as to your talk
Who, every word by all my wit being scanned
Wants wit in all one word to understand. (Adrianna exit)
Why how now, Dormio? Where rann'st thou so fast?
ACTOR 6Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio? Am I your man? Am I myself?
ACTOR 5Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
ACTOR 6 I am an ass, I am a woman's man and besides myself.
ACTOR 5What woman's man? and how besides thyself?
ACTOR 6Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one
that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.
ACTOR 5What claim lays she to thee?
ACTOR 6Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to your
horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I
being a beast, she would have me; but that she,
being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.
ACTOR 5What is she?
ACTOR 6A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may
not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have
but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a
wondrous fat marriage.
ACTOR 5How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
ACTOR 6Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease;
and I know not what use to put her to but to make alamp of her and run from her by her own light. Iwarrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a
Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday,
she'll burn a week longer than the whole world.
ACTOR 5What complexion is she of?
ACTOR 6Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half soclean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go overshoes in the grime of it.
ACTOR 5That's a fault that water will mend.
ACTOR 6No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.
ACTOR 2 Just mention the name William Shakespeare and almost automatically six little words come to mind: to be or not to be-
ACTOR 3Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand but use all gently.
ACTOR 2To be or not to be---
ACTOR 3Be not too tame neither but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
ACTOR 2To be or not to be--
ACTOR 3With this special observance, that you O'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now was and is, to hold as't,@vere the mirror up to nature. We now present the most famous monologue fromThe Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark.
ACTOR 8To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despisedlove, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.
ACTOR 3Shakespeare uses the Monorchy to show man at his most desperate. Here are a few desperate Kings.
ACTOR 14A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
ACTOR 15Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.
ACTOR 14Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die:
I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
ACTOR 16Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!
ACTOR 15O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters’ blessing; here’s a night pities neither wise man nor fool.