Week Eight, Day 50 - "Something Rotten"

“Something Rotten”
Written by Joe Janes

CAST:
Bernardo
Hamlet
King Hamlet’s Ghost
Gertrude
Marcellus

(Lights up on a melancholy Hamlet and Bernardo, a guard, on the wall of the castle in the middle of the night.)

BERNARDO

I tell thee, Hamlet. T’was here upon this wall I saw the ghostly visage of thine father. Marcellus, who guards the north wall, saw it, too.

HAMLET

I hope what you speak is true, Bernardo. My father’s spirit then is as uneasy as mine own.

BERNARDO

Except he’s dead.

HAMLET

Right.

BERNARDO

And you are not.

HAMLET

I was referring to my own disposition when I said spirit.

BERNARDO

Oh. Look, a mist.

HAMLET

Tis the shadow of a man.

BERNARDO

Tis your father.

(King Hamlet’s ghost enters.)

KING

Hamlet…Hamlet…

HAMLET

Father. Oh, how I have missed you so.

KING

Me, too. Good to see you. Bernardo.

BERNARDO

King.

HAMLET

Father, what is it that has wrested you from your tomb?

KING

Hamlet…Hamlet…You must avenge my death.

HAMLET

So, there was foul play!

KING

Indeed. Poison was poured into my ear as I slept.

HAMLET

Murder. And the offending beast, is it who I suspect?

KING

Yes, my loathsome brother Claudius, so he may take from me my wife and my throne.

GERTRUDE

Hamlet!...Hamlet!

BERNARDO

Queen Gertrude approaches.

HAMLET

Mother.

KING

Oh, shit.

(Gertrude enters.)

GERTRUDE

Hamlet. You should be resting – What mischief is this?

HAMLET

Nothing, Mother. Bernardo and I are just chatting with this stranger.

BERNARDO

Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?

KING

I love a good mist.

GERTRUDE

This stranger looks familiar, even in the dark of night. What brings you to our castle, sir?

KING

Just passing through.

GERTRUDE

Horrible liar, it’s your father!

BERNARDO

Technically, just his father’s ghost.

KING

Hello, Gertrude.

GERTRUDE

And what crap from beyond the grave are you peddling to your son, this time?

HAMLET

Mother, he wants me to avenge his death and so I shall.

GERTRUDE

By doing what? Killing God?

HAMLET

He said my uncle Claudius poured poison in his ear while he slept.

GERTRUDE

Really? And you believe him?

HAMLET

Seems to make sense.

BARNARDO

And he is a ghost, if I may say. Highly reliable source.

GERTRUDE

You’re such gullible ignorami. How would you know, Hamlet the Elder, if your brother Claudius poured poison in your ear while you slept? Weren’t you, oh, I don’t know, sleeping at the time?

KING

I recall feeling something wet in my ear. I mistook it for the feeble seductive advances of your tongue, which is why it did not stir me.

GERTRUDE

That I believe. But you still don’t know for a fact someone poured poison in your ear.

KING

Oh, I’m pretty sure.

GERTRUDE

But here is a query of more import. If you were indeed murdered at the hand of thy brother, why wait two frickin’ months after your death to tell anyone? After I already remarried and your brother has been coronated. Does being dead mean you can no longer tell time or read a calendar?

BERNARDO

Better late than never, right?

KING

There you go.

GERTRUDE

I’m not sure what your game is, but, Hamlet, your father died in his sleep just as the doctors stated. We spared you the details to save you from the humiliation. He drank too much before going to bed and choked upon his own regurgitations, just like a lowly minstrel. I might have been able to save him, had I not already been chased from the bedchamber by his many noisy and noxious gasses.

KING

I should never eat kung pao quail before going to bed.

GERTRUDE

And after downing a jug of mead.

KING

You know me gastronomically too well, fair Gertrude.

GERTRUDE

Don’t “fair Gertrude me,” you horse’s pale ass. You’re trying to control your son and your kingdom from behind death’s curtain. Go back to your hole in the ground and leave us be. Come, Hamlet. Off to bed.

HAMLET

Goodnight, Father. It was good seeing you, again.

KING

You, too, Son. Sorry it wasn’t under better circumstances (indicating Gertrude). But do your old man a favor.

HAMLET

What’s that?

KING

For God’s sake, cheer up. I thought by giving you a project, like avenging my death, might put you in a good mood. That and I really do hate my brother. You, son, must find a girl, commence to a strong campaign of wooing, win her heart and then settle down and begin producing more Hamlets. That Ophelia’s a hotty. A little nutty, but me-ow.

GERTRUDE

Well, at least we agree on something.

BERNARDO

That Ophelia’s a hotty?

GERTRUDE

That this one needs to settle down. Now, you off to sleep and you off to the grave. Goodnight.

(She exits with Hamlet leaving King Hamlet and Bernardo standing next to one another.)

BERNARDO

Would you like me to fix you up some kung pao quail to take with you?

KING

Oh, would you, Bernardo? That’s so sweet.

BERNARDO

Back in a jiff.

(Bernardo exits.)

MARCELLUS (off)

Halt! Who goes there?

KING (walking off)

Marcellus…Marcellus… Tis I, the ghost of King Hamlet. I need you to avenge my death, if you’re not too busy…

(Lights fade as he walks off.)