The Oral History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
By Bryan Lee Peterson
Polonius paced the dressing room space nervously, trying to pull his lines back up from memory. He’d been going like this for the hour since he’d arrived with Fortinbras, who lay asleep on a hard wooden bench.
“And keep these precepts in memory: Look after your…thy character. Give your …thy thoughts no tongue, and no unappropriate thought an act. Be familiar, but in no way vulgar. The friends you have, their adoption tried, Bring them into thy soul, and hold them like steel. Do not dull thy palm with the entertainment of every new hatched, un?edged comrade. Beware entrance to a quarrel; but, finding yourself there, bear it in mind that the opposed may be wary of thee,” Polonius said. He scratched his head and then started over. He’d never been this nervous before a performance in all his time in performance.
“I hardly remember these lines. How long has it been?
Fortinbras lifted his head only enough to directly address Polonius.
“Too long,” he said, and put his head back down. He had large bags under his eyes, they hadn’t let him sleep either.
“I’ve lost track of the last time we did this. When was the last time we were even together? I was in the camp for months, I know. Before that, there was a time where I never saw day or night, and I lost track of time. None of us knew what day it was. There were only days.”
He shook his head.
“I lost track as well. After a while I stopped wondering, it caused too much pain.”
“There are so many lines to recall. Why was I cast as Polonius, anyway? He just goes on and on. He’s a prattler, and I’m not a prattler by nature.”
“Sure you’re not,” Fortinbras said.
“Maybe a bit when I’m nervous.”
“Sure,” Fortinbras said with a sly nod, and a slight wink. “When you’re nervous.”
“But there’s so many lines to remember. It just feels so much like it was another age when we last did this. So much has happened to us.”
“Hm,” Fortinbras grunted in agreement. “Last time we had better accommodations.”
“We’ll never get back to that, will we? This performance can’t possibly change anything for us, right? I’d like to think that we could somehow make it out, but that doesn’t seem very likely.”
“To thine own self be true,” Fortinbras said.
“Is that the next line? I wish I had a book somewhere.” Read the rest of this entry »
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