The Letter Killers Club Read Online Free PDF

out. Now, on seeing the man he mistakes for Stern, Timer is unsurprised and even angry.”
    TIMER: Aha. So you’ve come. But the role has gone. Too late: Guilden is playing Hamlet.
    BURBAGE: You’re mistaken: the actor has gone, but not the role. At your service.
    TIMER: I don’t recognize you, Stern: you’ve always seemed to avoid playing—even with words. Well then, two actors for one role? Why not? Attention: I’m taking the role and breaking it in two. * It’s not hard to do: just find the fault line. Hamlet is, in essence, a duel between Yes and No: they will be our centrosomes, breaking the cell into two new cells. So then, let’s give it a try: get me two cloaks—black and white. ( He quickly marks up the notebooks with the roles, giving one to BURBAGE with the white cloak, the other to GUILDEN with the black cloak .) Act III, Scene 1. Places, please. One, two, three: Curtain up!
    HAMLET I ( white cloak ): To be?
    HAMLET II ( black cloak ): Or not to be?
    That is the question.
    HAMLET I: Whether ’tis better …
    HAMLET II: Whether ’tis nobler …
    HAMLET I: In the mind to suffer
    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. O no.
    HAMLET II: Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
    And by opposing end them!
    HAMLET I: To die,
    HAMLET II: To sleep—
    HAMLET I: No more?
    HAMLET II: And by a sleep to say we end
    The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
    HAMLET I: That flesh is heir to!
    HAMLET II: ’Tis a consummation
    Devoutly to be wished.
    HAMLET I: To die?
    HAMLET II: To sleep.
    HAMLET I: 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?
    HAMLET II: There’s the respect
    That makes calamity of so long life:
    For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
    Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
    The pangs of despised love …
    HAMLET I: The insolence of office, and the spurns
    That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes …
    HAMLET II. When he himself might his quietus make
    With a bare bodkin?
    But that the dread of something after death,
    The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
    No traveler returns—
    HAMLET I: That’s not true, I’ve returned!
    All look in amazement at BURBAGE who, having cut short the monologue, is threatening to split into a dialogue.
    TIMER: That’s not from the role.
    BURBAGE: That’s right. It’s from the Kingdom of Roles. ( He has resumed his former pose: chalk-white mask thrown arrogantly back over shroud-white cloak; eyes closed; lips curled in a harlequin’s smile. ) This was three hundred years ago. Will was playing the Ghost, * and I, the Prince. It had poured rain since morning, and the stalls were awash. Even so we had a full house. At the end of Act I, as I was declaiming about the time being “out of joint,” a pickpocket was caught stealing the public’s pence. I finished the scene to the squelching of sodden feet and the muffled sound of “thief-thief-thief.” The poor devil was dragged up onstage, as was our custom, and tied to a post. During the second act he looked embarrassed and averted his face from the pointing fingers. But scene by scene, he began to feel at home and almost part of the performance; more and more brazen, he made faces and criticisms till we untied him and hurled him from the stage. ( Turning abruptly to TIMER.) I don’t know what or who tied you to this play, but if you think that your paltry stolen thoughts—worth a pence apiece—can make me richer, me, for whom all these doggerels were written, then take your coppers and get out.
    Flings the role in TIMER ’s face. Consternation.
    PHELIA: Stern, pull yourself together!
    BURBAGE: My name is Richard Burbage. And I am untying you, you little thief. Out of the Kingdom of Roles!
    TIMER ( pale, but calm ): Thank you: I shall use my