The Laurence Olivier Awards 1997 Page #6

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- Well have it tomorrow night.

You could, for a need, study a speech

of some dozen or sixteen lines...

that I would set down

and insert in it, could you not?

Aye, my lord.

Very well. Follow that lord,

and look you mock him not.

The plays the thing wherein Illl

catch the conscience of the king!

Speak the speech,

I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,

trippingly on the tongue.

But if you mouth it,

as many of your players do,

I had as lief the town crier

spoke my lines.

Nor do not saw the air

too much with you hand, thus,

but use all gently.

For in the very torrent, tempest and, as

I may say, whirlwind, of your passion,

you must acquire and beget a temperance

that may give it smoothness.

Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear

a robustious, periwig-pated fellow...

tear a passion to tatters to split

the ears of the groundlings,

who, for the most part,

are capable of nothing...

but inexplicable dumb shows

and noise.

I would have

such a fellow whipped.

It out-Herods Herod.

Pray you, avoid it.

- I warrant, Your Honor.

- Hmm.

Be not too tame, neither, but let

your own discretion be your tutor.

Suit the action to the word,

the word to the action.

With this special observance, that you

oerstep not the modesty of nature.

For anything so overdone

is from the purpose of playing,

whose end, both of the first

and now,

was and is to hold as twere...

the mirror up to Nature,

to show Virtue

her own feature,

Scorn her own image...

and the very age and body

of the time...

his form and pressure.

Now this, overdone,

though it make the unskillful laugh,

cannot but make the judicious grieve.

The censure of which one must in your

allowance outweigh a whole theatre of others.

Oh, there be players

that I have seen play...

and heard others praise- and that

highly, not to speak of profanely-

that having neither the accent of Christians

nor the gait of pagan, Christian nor man,

have so strutted and bellowed that I

have thought some of Natures journeymen...

have made men and not made them well,

they imitated humanity so abominably.

I hope we have reformed

that indifferently with us, sir.

Oh, reform it altogether.

And let those that play your clowns

speak no more than is set down for them.

For there be of them

that will themselves laugh...

to set on some barren quantity

of spectators to laugh too,

though in the meantime some necessary

question of the play be then to be considered.

Thats villainous! And shows a most

pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.

Go, make you ready.

How now, my lord. Will the king

hear this piece of work?

And the queen too,

and that presently.

- Bid the players make haste.

- Aye, my lord.

- Horatio.

- Here, sweet lord, at your service.

- Observe mine uncle. Give him heedful note.

- Well, my lord.

They are coming to the play.

I must be idle. Get you a place.

How fares

our cousin Hamlet?

Excellent, i faith.

Of the chameleonss dish.

I eat the air, promise-crammed.

You cannot feed capons so.

I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet.

These words are not mine.

No, nor mine now. My lord, you played

once in the university, you say?

That did I, my lord,

and was accounted a good actor.

- What did you enact?

- I did enact Julius Caesar.

I was killed in the Capitol.

Brutus killed me.

It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.

- Be the players ready?

- Aye, my lord. They stay upon your patience.

Come hither, my dear Hamlet.

Sit by me.

No, good Mother. Heres metal more attractive.

Oh, ho.

Did you mark that?

Lady, shall I lie

in your lap?

- No, my lord.

- I mean my head upon your lap.

- Aye, my lord.

- Do you think I meant country matters?

- I think nothing, my lord.

- Thats a fair thought to lie between maidss legs.

- What is, my lord?

- Nothing.

- You are merry, my lord.

- Who? I?

- Aye, my lord.

- Oh, God, your only jig maker.

Why, what should a man do

but be merry?

For look you how merrily my mother looks,

and my father died within two hours!

Nay, tis twice two months,

my lord.

So long? Nay, then. Let the devil wear

black, for Ill have a suit of sables.

O heavens. Died two months ago,

and not forgotten yet?

Why then theres hope a great manss

memory may outlive his life half a year.

For us and for our tragedy,

here stooping

to your clemency,

we beg

your hearing patiently.

- Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring?

- Tis brief, my lord.

As womans love.

You are keen, my lord.

You are keen.

It would cost you a groaning

to take off mine edge.

Give me some light!

Away!

Lights! Lights!

Lights! Lights!

Why, let the stricken deer

go weep

The hart ungalled play

For some must watch

whilst some must sleep

Thus runs the world away

Oh, good Horatio! Ill take the ghostss

word for a thousand pounds. Didst perceive?

- Very well, my lord.

- Upon the act of poisoning. God bless you, sir!

- Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

- Sir, a whole history.

- The king, sir-

- Aye, sir, what of him?

- He is in his retirement marvelous distempered.

- With drink, sir?

No, my lord.

Rather with choler.

Your wisdom should show itself more

richer to signify this to the doctor.

For, for me to put him to his purgation

would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

Good my lord, put your discourse into some

frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

- I am tame, sir. Pronounce.

- The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit...

- hath sent me to you.

- You are welcome.

Nay, my lord, this courtesy

is not of the right breed.

If it shall please you to make me a wholesome

answer, I will do your mothers commandment.

If not, your pardon, and my return

shall be the end of my business.

- Sir, I cannot.

- What, my lord?

Make you a wholesome answer.

My wits diseased.

But sir, such answer as I can make,

you shall command.

Or rather, as you say, my mother.

Therefore no more, but to the matter.

- My mother, you say.

- She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

We shall obey, were she ten times our

mother. Have you any further trade with us?

My lord, the queen would speak

with you, and presently!

Do you see yonder cloud thats almost

in shape of a camel?

By the mass, and tis

like a camel indeed.

Methinks it is

like a weasel.

- It is backed like a weasel.

- Or like a whale?

Very like a whale.

Then I will come to my mother

by and by.

I will say so.

BBy and by

is easily said.

Leave me, friend.

Tis now the very witching time

of night,

when churchyards yawn and hell

itself breathes out contagion...

to this world.

Now could I drink hot blood...

and do such bitter business as the day

would quake to look on.

Soft.

Now to my mother.

O heart, lose not

thy nature.

Let not ever the soul of Nero

enter this firm bosom.

Let me be cruel,

not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her,

but use none.

My lord?

Hes going to his motherss

closet.

Behind the arras Ill conceal

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