The Letter Killers Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

has envied his shadow: it can grow smaller or larger, whereas I am always equal to myself, the same man of the same inches, days, and thoughts. I have long since ceased to need the sun’s light, I prefer the footlights; all my life I have searched for the Land of Roles; but it refuses to accept me. I am only a conceiver, you see, I cannot complete anything: the letters hidden inside your book—O great image—shall remain forever unread by me.
    BURBAGE: You never know. I’ve lived here for three hundred years, far from the extinguished footlights. Time enough to finish thinking all one’s thoughts. And you know, better to be an extra there, on earth, than a leading actor here, in the world of played-out plays. Better to be a dull and rusty blade than a precious but empty scabbard; indeed, better to be somehow or other than not to be magnificently: I would not struggle with that dilemma now. If you truly want—
    STERN: Oh, I do!
    BURBAGE: Then let’s trade places: why shouldn’t a role play an actor playing roles?
    They trade cloaks. Buried in their books, the Hamlets don’t notice BURBAGE (who has already mastered STERN ’s walk and mannerisms) moving toward the exit with his beret pulled low over his face.
    STERN: I’ll wait for you. ( He turns around to Burbage’s empty seat and sees the book, its brass clasps twinkling. ) He forgot his book. Too late: he’s gone. ( He sits down on the edge of the chair and examines the closed clasps with curiosity. All about him, he again hears pages rustling and the soft: “Words-words-words.” ) I’ll wait.
    Third position: Backstage. Perched on a low bench by the stage door is PHELYA , a notebook on her knees. Rocking back and forth with her hands over her ears, she is learning her role.
    PHELYA: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet …
    Enter GUILDEN.
    GUILDEN: Is Stern here?
    PHELYA: No.
    GUILDEN: You better warn him: if he skips rehearsal again today, the role goes to me.
    BURBAGE ( appears in the doorway, behind the speakers’ backs. In an aside ): The role has gone, it’s true: but not from him and not to you.
    GUILDEN exits through a side door. PHELIA again bends over her notebook.
    PHELIA: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
    Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,
    No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,
    Ungartered, and down-gyvèd to his ankle,
    Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
    And with a look so piteous in purport,
    As if he had been loosèd out of hell
    To speak of horrors—he—
    BURBAGE ( finishing the line ): “He comes before me.” Isn’t that how it goes? My knees are knocking each other. No wonder—after walking all that way. But it would take too long to tell you about it.
    PHELIA ( staring at him in astonishment ): Darling, how well you’ve entered the role.
    BURBAGE: Your darling has entered something else.
    PHELIA: They wanted to take it away from you. I sent a letter yesterday. Did you receive it?
    BURBAGE: I’m afraid letters cannot be received there. Besides, how can you take a role away from an actor who’s been taken away?
    PHELIA: What a strange thing to say.
    BURBAGE: “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.”
    Enter TIMER, GUILDEN, and several other actors, interrupting the dialogue.
    â€œTimer is the director, we won’t invent his appearance, let’s just say he looks like me: those who wish to may look closer.” Rar smiled, surveying his listeners.
    No one returned his smile, it seems, but me: sitting in a close, silent circle, the conceivers in no way betrayed their reaction to the story.
    â€œI see Timer as an experimenter, a stubborn calculator wedded to the substitution method: he needs the people he puts in his productions the way a mathematician needs numbers: when it is this or that number’s turn, he inserts it; when the number’s turn is over, he crosses it