Voices from the Past Part 117

The dropping of one drop can absorb a soul: its alchemy traps a man: so, we, reduced, debased, encompa.s.sed, are carried to sea, to finality, ourselves made useless, noiseless, like a million others.

I heard rain throughout the night, from lying down to getting up, no sleep, only this endrenchment, intent on obliteration, transforming life into a comedy of errors.

I was twenty-eight or so!

All morning I sawed wood for props; all afternoon I practiced lines; all evening I rehea.r.s.ed. My costume didn't fit: the crown was badly torn. At four in the morning, there was no food for us. That was life at the Globe, when I first tried London.

I estimate that I have earned less than a hundred pounds from my thirty-seven plays. When I divide that by thirty years of work, I see what it represents. At least I see that much.

Henley Street

1615

"Small coals! Small coals!"

"Hot peas!"

I wish I could hear those raucous London street hawkers! I'd like to see the Thames crowded with little boats. I'd like to see the people packed in front of St.

Paul's. I'd like to be back at the Exchange, for the armorers and booksellers and glovers. I'd like to stare off-stage at a thousand rapt faces.

I miss Burbage more than anyone. He and I worked hand- in-glove for more than ten years, seeing each other almost every day. He played Hamlet, Oth.e.l.lo, King Lear, and his was the finest Lear voice-transcending. Lear was Burbage and Burbage was Lear. There were no weaknesses.

Weaknesses?

I have mine-so many weaknesses.

Today I have been up and round but last week I was in bed throughout the week. When I am up and about, I freeze. My sight fades. My heart bangs. I must get to the composition of my will, the final act in my play...no applause...no whistles...silence.

Burbage could take my lines and recite them for me, adding, subtracting, modulating. If there must be rewriting I knew, through his skill, what I must do to improve a scene.

What amusing letters he used to write home, when he was traveling with the Company. He and Alleyn were as domesticated as tea.

"Dear Jug," he would address his wife. "Dear Mouse,"

Alleyn wrote his.

"Dear Jug, let my orange-tawny stockings be dyed a good black, against my coming home in the winter," Alleyn wrote.

He wanted his wife to sow spinach in his parsley bed at the proper season.

"...Sweet Jug, farewell, till All Hallow's tide, and brook our long journey with patience."

We brooked many a tedious journey with patience.

October 1, 1615

Gargoyles and ghosts: they are always a part of pain.

Here is a prescription: pulverize a gargoyle in a deep mortar, shred one carefully, mix with ample wheat and milk, add salt, bake two hours, serve piping hot. Add surfeit of prunes, against the inevitable her.

Globe Theatre:

Elegant and seedy theatregoers.

Hand bills read Hamlet:

Actor Burbage mounts the stage

behind candles, rushes, torches.

Backstage, actors hustling, yacking.

A soldier outside p.i.s.ses:

Curtain rises.