The Parrot Tavern

By David Wurtzebach

The Parrot Tavern is a necessarily fictionalized (and often comic) rendering of the love triangle alluded to in Shakespeares sonnets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483655123

David Wurtzebach

Its author, David Wurtzebach, is married and the father of three grown children. In the early 1980s, his novel Sizing Up Y found an agent but no publisher. After spending the last twenty-nine years as an employee of the US Post Office he is now retired.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by David Wurtzebach.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2013910908

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4836-5511-6

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4836-5510-9

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4836-5512-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 08/28/2013

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Contents

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

SCENE 2

SCENE 3

SCENE 4

ACT TWO

SCENE 1

SCENE 2

SCENE 3

SCENE 4

Author’s Note: This text went to press prior to being given a fully staged performance. Upon receiving such, changes inevitably will result.

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that The Parrot Tavern is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and all countries covered by the International Copyright Union, and all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and all of the countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording, all other forms of electronic or mechanical reproduction such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid upon the question of readings, permission for which must be secured in writing from the author, who may be reached at [e-mail].

In memory of, and a much belated goodbye to

Carol Ann Wurtzebach

Cast of Characters

HOSTESS, the proprietress of tavern

KEMP, 30, an actor-clown

WILL, 28, an actor-poet

COURTIERS 1 and 2, early 20s

EARL, 19, a handsome young lord

CONSTANCE, late 20s, a maidservant

DARK LADY, 21, a musician

SETS

Act I, scenes 1 and 4: one of the tavern’s upstairs private rooms

Act I, scene 2: the tavern’s main room

Act I, scene 3: a small side room at Titchfield Manor

Act II, scenes 1 and 4: the tavern’s upstairs private room

Act II, scene 2: the main room of tavern

Act II, scene 3: the earl’s bedroom, London

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

Autumn 1592. Will, in upstairs private room of tavern, is seated at table and writing steadily. Kemp enters hallway and is immediately followed by Hostess.

HOSTESS: No! NO! Sirrah, leave this house!

KEMP : Sirrah! (turns to face Hostess) I prithee, madam, who dost thou so address?

HOSTESS: You know full well.

KEMP: I I swear I know not. Dost thou take me for a drawer? A lackey? Or would ’t be your lamentable spouse, he that is more lacking—

HOSTESS: Villain! (strikes Kemp, turns and shouts) OFFICERS! HELP!

KEMP: Susan—

HOSTESS: VILLAIN! (hits him again)

KEMP: OW!

BOTH: OFFICERS! HELP!

HOSTESS: You have no shame! To mock the dead! (shudders)

KEMP: Love, peace! Are we not friends? Good ones what, seven years, eight years? Only to have it end now in rancour? In this ugly spite?

HOSTESS: It did end long since! You have no sense! You have no priety! Your buffoonity goes on and on! It has no end!

KEMP: Priety? Buffoonity? O my sweet, word-minting weed.

HOSTESS: Weed!

KEMP: Ay! My weed! Whate’er be my thoughts, you are in them.

HOSTESS: O fie.

KEMP: I mean it! Susan, come, ere this heart breaks, tell me, please, wherein do I I offend you?

HOSTESS: Wherein offend me? Lord have mercy, wherein not! You have no respect! No care! You tear—

KEMP: Sweet—

HOSTESS:—through mine inn, throwing wide this door and that! I’ll not stand for it! ’Tis not the Curtain, not the—

KEMP: The Rose!

HOSTESS:—or whate’er the heath’ny stage on which you bellow an’ shake like fork-struck bull! NO, THIS HOUSE IS PUBLIC! WITH GUESTS! They come… I am sworn… My guests have right—they have ever’ right—to their privities!

KEMP: To their privities? Ay, indeed they must! Were I to be your guest, I know I should want them. And yet, dear Susan, e’en you will admit: these private acts o’ which your guests so oft engage, they are not secret. Everybody knows them! And that being so, wherefore the need of privacy? Or modesty? What is the point of that? And as for that red-faced discomfort so oft-times call’d shame, I say PAH! And to make certain my meaning is clear, allow me to add: FIE UPON IT! O had only God, The-All-Seeing but will’d it, then well should all possess those traits—the valiance, the pride—which he himself ingraft in the finest of bulls. (turns away from Hostess) And hey now! What is this? Some bloody useless door hath wish to oppose me? Hah!

HOSTESS, quickly grabs Kemp’s arms: I tell you nay! I’ll see you hang’d!

Kemp and Hostess wrestle for a moment, then . . .

KEMP: Sweet hostess, gentlewoman, forget not yourself. Forget not your station.

HOSTESS: My station? (breaks free) This inn is my station! And you want to make a bawdy house of it!

KEMP: Your bawdy house is now become inn? Forgive me, mine eyes grow dim. No! Wait! Was ’t not Monday last when bailiff’s man came round? When he paid you visit.

HOSTESS: He did not! You mock me, sir.

KEMP: I do, and I shouldn’t. I am sorry. But Susan, at such times as this—when you find me unrev’rend, when I act the bloody fool—ignore me! Look to your guests! Any will tell you! Your house, your victuals, your ales—they are Southwark’s finest! And only Southwark? Hell, they are the finest in all of London! And as for your maids! O! To a one they are as chaste—as chaste?