Stage Direction Katie Mitchell
Sets and Costumes Vicki Mortimer
Lighting Director James Farncombe
Movement Director Joseph Alford
Characters
King
baritone
Isabel, his wife
soprano
Gaveston
his advisor and intimate friend
doubling as
Stranger
baritone
Mortimer
his chief military expert
tenor
Boy, later Young King
an adolescent, son of Isabel and King
high tenor / haute-contre
Witness 1 / Singer 1 / Woman 1
high (coloratura) soprano
Witness 2 / Singer 2 / Woman 2
mezzo-soprano
Witness 3 / Madman
bass-baritone
Also required (all silent roles)
Young Girl, daughter of Isabel and King
Other Witnesses
Audience at Play, to a maximum of, say, twenty
Part One
SCENE ONE
Palace: King’s Apartments.
King, Mortimer, Gaveston, Isabel, the Boy and Girl.
Mortimer
It’s nothing to do with loving a man. It’s love full stop that is poison. The whole human body –
King
Yes – we hear you – love full stop –
Mortimer
And the money –
King
Always the money – always the human body –
Mortimer
– the money you spend –
King
– we will spend whatever we like –
Mortimer
The money you spend with Gaveston while people starve is unacceptable –
King
– Ah – ah – ‘with Gaveston’ – ‘unacceptable’ –
Mortimer
– yes when the price of bread –
King
Don’t bore me with the price of bread.
Don’t block my mind with politics.
Mortimer
You are the king.
King
Then treat me – Mortimer – as king.
Love me. Defer to me.
Defer to my friend and advisor Gaveston.
Let us spend money on poetry and music.
Or would you rather we preferred for our entertainment
human blood and the machinery of killing?
Mortimer
No one is talking about blood.
King
Oh? What? No one? –
Mortimer
Nor do I fight wars for my entertainment –
King
– Who is no one? Am I no one? –
Mortimer
– I fight to protect our people –
King
– I thought I was king.
Who am I, Gaveston? – tell me.
Gaveston
King – you are king.
King
King – I am king.
Don’t call me no one, Mortimer.
Don’t go out into the world and call love poison.
Love makes us human.
Mortimer
So does the need to kill.
So – forgive me – does politics.
King
Do you want – Mortimer – to be me? –
Mortimer
I don’t understand.
King
– want to be me –
take my wife – Mortimer –
use my bed – Mortimer –
murder and kill and take my crown?
Because cities will burn and wherever you touch the immaculate surface of her skin your politics will leave streaks of my blood.
But maybe – tell me – does Mortimer keep a cat?
Takes Girl on his lap.
They say there’s an insane person claiming to be king
on evidence provided by his cat.
Maybe his name is Mortimer.
Mortimer
I am loyal.
King
What did he say?
Gaveston
He said he is loyal.
He claims not to have
a cat.
King
He tells me my people are starving – but who have
I ever harmed?
Isabel
No one. Yourself – sometimes.
King
Not you?
Isabel
Never.
King
You see: I am entirely innocent.
And have I hurt Gaveston?
Isabel
Ask Gaveston.
King
Have I hurt you, Gaveston?
Gaveston turns away.
I ASKED YOU A QUESTION ANSWER ME.
Gaveston
Not when you grip my neck.
Not when you hold my right hand deliberately over a flame.
Not even when you have forced me to swim in winter under the dull grey ice till my lungs are beginning to split –
Oh but when you let that man
equate money with love and the whole human body
with shame and bitterness –
when he questions your right to be king –
when his eyes move – look – like a sly animal’s over everything you own
then I want to run at his throat with a steel razor –
Take his property.
Mortimer
No – none of this is true.
Gaveston
Take Mortimer’s property.
Take his house – take over his land. Punish him.
Give me his rents.
Remove from his finger that fat gold ring.
Mortimer
None of this is true.
Isabel
But Mortimer is our friend –
King
Yes Mortimer is our friend –
Gaveston
Mortimer – Mortimer – even the name means death –
King
Mortimer is our friend
and is loyal and in his own cold way – believe me –
Mortimer loves each one of us.
Gaveston
Then why in his own cold way when I take my hand
and I place it here –
place it like this –
He takes the King by the throat perhaps – a gesture that suggests both violence and intimacy.
– does he feel –
look at his face –
disgust?
Tell me I’m wrong – dead man Mortimer.
Isabel
Tell him he’s wrong.
Mortimer looks away.
King
Oh my poor friend Mortimer –
from this moment you have no land –
from today you will have no property.
The clothes you are wearing
you no longer own.
And being now nothing
you have no name.
Isabel
Don’t call him nothing.
King
I say that he has no name:
do not contradict me, Isabel.
I say he is nothing.
I say that all I can see where Mortimer once stood
is the black space of a collapsing star.
Gaveston
But I see the ring.
King (to Boy)
Ah. Sweetheart.
Boy
What is it
Daddy?
King
Bring Gaveston the ring.
Mortimer is impassive. The Boy struggles to remove the ring.
Gaveston
The boy needs a knife.
Isabel
No!
King
No violence please.
Let ours be a regiment
of tolerance and love.
SCENE TWO
Palace: Isabel’s Apartments, some months later.
Isabel, Mortimer, the Boy and Girl, and a number of Witnesses.
Isabel
Who are these people, Mortimer?
They’re frightening my children.
Mortimer
I’ve travelled, Isabel.
I wanted to see my country.
I began in the mountains
but there was nothing to eat but stone.
So I came down to the spring meadow
but in each refuge
I found a shepherd with his throat cut
and the clean bones of animals.
In the foothills
I dug for roots
and lay for heat
in the ash of burnt villages – but –
closer – Isabel – to our own city
I found these witnesses.
And led them in secret
here – Isabel – to your door.
Isabel
Why?
Mortimer
Listen.
Isabel
What is it she’s holding?
Witness 2
My husband died – forgive me –
in your husband’s war –
but then your husband gave our land –
he gave away our home – he gave our property –
to Gaveston.
I came here with nothing but my body
and sold it over and over – forgive me.
I had a baby – oh forgive me – but my baby died
and this is my baby’s ash.
Since Gaveston has taken everything
then I would like him to take my baby too.
Yes – yes – here is my baby too. Take it.
Isabel
Keep her away – I am not Gaveston.
My name’s not Gaveston – keep her away from me.
Witness 1
They say one jewel from Gaveston’s silver cup –
one cut emerald –
could’ve fed my whole dead family –
Witness 2
They say he’s magic and can predict the future.
I hope his future
is to be burned alive.
Witness 1
They say one night of the music
for that man Gaveston –
Isabel
‘They say’ – ‘they say’ – that’s not a witness –
Witness 1
– say just one night costs the same
as one whole year of our labour –
Isabel
No there is no connection –
Witness 1
– one whole year of work –
Isabel
– no connection between our music and your labour.
Mortimer
Tell her what else the people say.
Witness 3
They say
we know why
the poor sleep three
in a bed but
why do
the rich?
Isabel (to Girl)
Bring me a cup of vinegar.
Pause.
Listen – witnesses – I respect each one of you.
I am a human being and a mother too.
My body is forked like yours:
it loves – and breaks –
like a common criminal’s –
with the same pain.
But do not come here
trying to put a price on music.
She takes the cup of vinegar from the Girl.
This – is acid –
and this pearl …
She takes a pearl from around her neck.
… this pearl – you are right –
would buy each one of you a house with fourteen rooms
and beds and winter firewood but –
the beauty of the pearl
is not what the pearl can buy.
The beauty of the pearl – like the slow radiance of music –
is what the pearl is.
Look.
She drops the pearl into the vinegar.
Fourteen rooms dissolve.
And the whole winter stock of wood.
The dull dreams of the average dreamer –
money – property – burn away
in the acid of of of
of pure and inexchangeable value.
And? – what? – which one of you will drink it?
Maybe this one – this one – you – you – three in a bed –
the slanderer!
She tries to force Witness 3 to drink.
Mortimer grabs her and knocks away the cup.
Now give them all money and get them all out.
The Witnesses go.
Boy
Why do the poor sleep
three in a bed – Mummy?
Isabel
To keep warm – sweetheart.
Boy
And why – Mummy – do the rich?
Isabel
The man told a lie – sweetheart.
Boy
Why did the man tell a lie?
Why did the man tell a lie – Mummy?
Isabel
Because he is poor and angry.
Mortimer – tell me – what is it like to kill?
Mortimer
There is an art to killing – but no joy.
Isabel
What is it I should do?
Mortimer
Provide an entertainment.
Empty Gaveston’s mind with music –
and I can destroy him.
Isabel
No one must harm my husband.
Mortimer
No one will harm your husband –
only Gaveston.
What are you thinking, Isabel?
Isabel
Move away.
The children are watching us.
SCENE THREE
Palace: a theatre.
The theatre’s curtain is closed – empty chairs are set out for an audience.
King and Gaveston.
Later, Isabel, the Children, Singers 1 and 2, Mortimer.
King seizes Gaveston by the wrist.
King
How can I love you?
A man with the steel hand
Gaveston
Yes I’m a human razor:
take care or I’ll cut your throat.
King
You bite your fingernails like a boy does –
the skin’s broken where you punched the wall –
why did you punch the wall?
Gaveston
Love is a prison:
I wanted to see daylight.
King
How can I love a man who calls love a prison? –
who says he would cut my throat?
How would you kill me, Gaveston? –
would it be slow? –
or sudden?
Gaveston
I’d only kill you for money.
King
For money? – kill me for money? – how much money?
Gaveston
How much would you pay me?
King
How long will it take to die? – I’ll pay you for every minute.
Tell me my future, Gaveston.
Gaveston
Then open your hand.
King opens his hand.
King
What can you see?
Pause.
Gaveston
Here – look – is my baby king.
He appoints ministers and sets villages alight
even in his painted cradle –
and his rattle is a box of emeralds.
And here –
– keep it still –
– is his child bride Isabel.
This same hand that now seals the instruction
to sever a man’s head
strips bare her silk body.
Now your belovèd boy’s tor
n out of her –
and another child –
and this – look – shows how the children grow
so fast does life move till already this line cutting across
means war or fire or storm or crops burning –
King
Yes yes politics – but where –
Gaveston
– means Mortimer testing for Isabel
the machinery of killing –
King
– Mortimer – machinery –
but where is my future? –
where is my brother Gaveston?
Gaveston
You know where I am:
inside your life.
I’ve no life out of it.
I live where you are looking:
in the hard palm of your hand.
Isabel enters with the two children.
Behind them, the audience for the performance, who come and sit in the chairs.
Isabel
Please everyone – be seated.
Gaveston
What is the music, Isabel?
Isabel
The killing of Saul
and of Jonathan his son.
Gaveston
I don’t like killing – neither will your children.
Isabel
A child knows it’s normal to kill our enemies –
but this will be David’s lament: there is no violence.
King has taken his place in front row of the audience, with his children beside him.
Gaveston
I have no enemies.
Isabel
Please – sit next to me.
Gaveston
Won’t you sit with your husband.
Isabel
I am closer to my husband
Gaveston
the closer I am to you.
As they sit together in the back row of the audience, the onstage curtain goes up to reveal two female Singers, exquisitely dressed.
Singers
And David said:
where is my brother?
where is my brother Jonathan?
‘They fastened his body’
– said the messenger –
‘to the wall of Beth-shan.’
Where is my brother?
where is my brother Jonathan?
Gaveston
Oh how very beautifully they sing –
Isabel
You have tears in your eyes –
Singers
They took down his body to be burned.
Isabel
– is it too tight?
Gaveston
Is what?
Isabel
The ring, the ring –
is Mortimer’s ring too tight for your finger?
Don’t move away from me – no –
sit close sit close to me Gaveston sit closer –
Singers
And David said:
where is my brother?
oh where is my brother Jonathan?
But Gaveston stands when he sees Mortimer staring at him from the edge of the space. Members of the onstage audience stand around him as if to block an escape. The Singers continue.