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Counselling Shakespeare

1-   He sees a counsellor
2-   Assertiveness training
3-   Motivation Course
4-   Sectioned
5-   The Prince of Prozac
6-   Shelter for the Homeless
7-   Aromatherapy
8-   The Behaviourist
9-   Sex Education
10- She goes on the Jerry Springer show
11- Death of a Queen
12- The Playwright Responds
13- The Therapists Respond
14- The Author Concludes

1- He sees a counsellor

You say your wife is seeing another man.
You don’t know when or where or even who.
It’s time to talk to her while you still can,
to build a bridge between the two of you.

To show her how distressed you are, and yet
so angry too.  I pick that up from here.
You have to raise these issues.  Don’t forget
you can’t expect she’ll buy into your fear.

Yes, fear.  Your courage, will it let you feel
the fear, explore your own emotional space?
This jealousy of yours – it isn’t real.
It’s something that you need – it fills a place.

She’ll find that place with you, if you don’t shout.
Say “Desdemona – help me work things out”

 

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2- Assertiveness training

I serve my father and I serve my Lord
No – not my God.  I said:  I serve my Lord.
You wouldn’t understand – such is my life –
For I was born to wait upon his word.

And now I wait to die.  My father’s dead.
I cannot think of it.  My brother’s fled.
There’s no one now to tell me what to think -
Nobody but my Lord, and he has said

That I should get me to a nunnery.
His place is to command, mine to obey.
Who now shall speak for me?  Make up my mind?
My thoughts are not my own.  What can I say?

You say you’ll help me understand my wants.
A meagre thing, for one who serves a Prince.

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3- Motivation Course

Think of it as a sort of martial art -
‘cause where they’re going doesn’t count at all.
Whichever way they lean, that way you push.
They lean.  You push.  What matters is: they fall.

So - this is how I manage my career,
I use psychology - that’s all I do -
and I’m a big success - that’s why you’re here:
to make them think what they want comes from you.

And that’s it:  Motivation.  Capital ‘M’.
He’s eating from your hand - stands on his head -
does anything you say.  He’ll kill for you.
You’ve seen me pull this off.  You know it’s true.

So now you have the key that’ll set you right.
My name’s Iago - thank you and good night.

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4- Sectioned

He comes before us on three separate counts:
the Peace Bond that the court set yesterday;
and then last night the murder in the streets;
and then the matter of his fiancée.

He’s clearly failing in community care.
He falls in love with someone every hour -
first Rosaline, and now this Juliet;
He’s as unstable as he’s immature.

He cannot be allowed to breach the peace.
Invoke the Mental Health Act, for God’s sake.
Society is threatened by this boy.
Verona’s women’s virtue is at stake.

Do not forget his words before this bench:
“I guess that I just fight and fuck too much.”

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5- The Prince of Prozac"

To be or not to be – who the hell cares?
I’ve better ways to spend my time, my days
on Earth.  “Why worry?” I say.  He who spares
the rod for his own back – can live at ease.

I’m for the easy ride.  I’m just upset
with this old castle, with its gloom and mould.
I’m out of here the first chance that I get.
This place is too depressing.  I’m not old

enough to stick it here.  So Mother, you
can sleep around however much you like.
It’s all the same to me.  I know it’s true
there are no ghosts, when I sleep through the night.

Now I don’t ask why I was in such pain –
I take the tablets, and again … again …

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6- Shelter for the Homeless

Oh him -- the one who calls himself The King.
They brought him in last night; been sleeping rough
and wandering ‘round the borough all this Spring
‘til last night’s storm.  That’s when the cops got tough.

Complaints, you know.  The local residents
said he was making more noise than the thunder.
Pair of lungs on him, it makes you wonder
where he gets the strength. He’s got no sense.

He’s got relations on the council list
but he denies it, says he’s on his own.
We found a daughter – didn’t care a piss.
So now we’re looking for the other one

This Goneril - that’s where he’ll have to go.
Back on the streets for him if she says No.

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7- Aromatherapy

Her arms once circled in my collar’s stead.
Where now her touch, her taste, her scent, her sound?
Her cushioned breast that bore my weighted head?
Her hands that scratched my ears? Where are they found?

Oh rub the oil where once she stroked my mane,
and sing.  Oh please!  Can you not sing?
She sang such songs as I still hear -- again
I hear the echo -- but have lost the ring.

My life was lived one night in that bright wood.
One hour I was the joy of joy’s own Queen.
Her lips caressed my passion where I stood
‘til I made bray - made bray – sublime – obscene.

Now rub -- ‘til you rub out this mania.
And yet I call her name:  Titania!                        Image  

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8- The Behaviourist

Ah, Mrs M.  Do take a chair. Sit still.
Don’t rub your hands.  I said, don’t rub your hands!
Well, you were warned.  It’s just a thrill,
a small electric charge.  The body stands

far more than that – as I should know.  No, no
it’s nothing dangerous – but we can make
you stop this rubbing, or can make you go
on once again.  We have control.  We break

your patterns, and create them new.  Good news.
It means that we have ways to make you sleep.
We deal with what is real, not with your views.
We change your acts; your so-called thoughts you keep.

And we will both be spared the rigmarole
of an examination of your soul.
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9- Sex Education

Now class, you know why we are here: Sex Ed.
Well, actually, that’s how we got here, or
you’re virgin births.  A joke. Take it as read
you know all that.  But do you know there’s more?

        My bounty is as boundless as the sea, 
        My love as deep.  The more I give to thee
        The more I have, for both are infinite.

It’s not just sex.  There are the things above
the physical to find, to know – enjoy.
You’ll fall in love.  I hope you fall in love,
though that brings problems, too – for girls and boys.

                                        When he shall die
        Take him and cut him out in little stars
        And he will make the face of heaven so fine
        That all the world will be in love with night.

You think you made the things that you discover.
You are the last – make all the same mistakes – 
yet think you are the first to love – first ever!
How much you have to learn.  How long it takes.

        O I have bought the mansion of a love,
        But not possessed it … tedious is this day. 
        Be not so long to speak.  I long to die
        If what thou speakest, speak not of remedy.

For homework you can read about effects
Of drugs at discos, and about safe sex.

      O shut the door, and when though hast done so,
      Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help.

 

 

 

 

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10- She goes on the Jerry Springer show

I want to have my say.  It isn’t fair.
The rest talk you to death - and after death
still they talk on.  About me, they don’t care.
I’m choked off here - I want to spend my breath

to tell my tale.
                         I’m on!  I hold this sign:

 I’m married to my husband’s murderer,
 usurper of the throne, and plotter in
 attempted murder (didn’t quite occur)
 of my one son, that one, who turns around
 and by mistake stabs his fiancée’s Dad
 which sends the fiancée mad – she goes and drowns
They stopped me there:  no room left on the card.

Ah, well.  The worst is past.  My son’s OK.
Tonight he’s being nice:  giving a play.                       Image 

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11- Death of a Queen

I am immortal.  Death is just a door
between rooms in my many-chambered hall.
Though people mourn - and pile up, more and more,
the flowers to crest against the palace wall.

They celebrate my death.  They want to learn
through me the road past life.  They need to fill
this road with their own tears.  Through me they earn
an insight, lift a corner of the veil.

To work my sacrifice – I must be young,
my beauty worshipped, meet a sudden end
by violence, or by the serpent’s tongue.
I do this work again – and yet again.

They hold an inquest:  ask “was this well done?”
My dying thoughts are for my two lost sons.
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12- The Playwright Responds

The first rule is:  make up your mind.  Be clear.
You wish to ridicule.  Point not at me!
It was these ‘therapies’ first brought you here,
To my creations, asking that they be

Subjected to such remedies as your
Own times possess.  This incongruity
Makes ready jest, I know.  All such humour
Has served my purposes most readily –

If they were low enough.  Send me
And all my works to therapy?  You do not try.
You send yourself to me for remedy.
I grasp the heart, wrench out and hold it high!

Who came to mock, now awed in silence stands
Before eternal words pen’d by my hand.

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13- The Therapists Respond

We welcome all, the easy and the hard
the real or fictional.  To pick and choose
is not our way.  Our positive regard
is unconditional.  These are the views

of all who minister to those in pain.
You are so many.  More and more we see
you turn to us, to more and more again
of us, a service, a growth industry.

Our challenge is to so increase our sphere
‘til we provide for all.  All we enfold!
Well, yes, there is a numbers problem here
but contradictions we can learn to hold.

So come.  Bring Shakespeare.  Bring your fantasy.
O Brave New World – with all in therapy.

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14- The Author Concludes

These sonnets now are ended – creatures of
one playwright’s mind now mended by such art
as our times offer.  We watch from above
each sent as though to read for a new part.

What is our part?  These characters we can
grow up with, we can see them on the stage.
They are the very pattern of a man
or woman of our own – or any – age.

We laugh.  They stumble into traps and pit-
falls of our lives, our well-developed state.
We watch and laugh to see the benefit
these therapies and services create.

These players subject to our modern rule –
how cruel for them!  For us, how very cruel.

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Credits: 

      Opening Portrait
1-   He sees a counsellor.............................
2-   Assertiveness training
3-   Motivation Course................................
4-   Sectioned
5-   The Prince of Prozac.............................
6-   Shelter for the Homeless
7-   Aromatherapy........................................
8-   The Behaviourist
9-   Sex Education.........................................
10- She goes on the Jerry Springer show
11- Death of a Queen...................................
12- The Playwright Responds
13- The Therapists Respond......................
14- The Author Concludes
http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe/portrait.htm
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http://www.geocities.com/kimharbison/pre.html
http://www.craigmont.org/pics.htm
http://www.romeoandjuliet.com/test/ecard.htm
http://www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/film/rb-hamlet64.htm
http://www.shakespearedc.org/g909111.html
http://www.illusionsgallery.com/titania.html
http://www.legends.dm.net/shakespeare/macbeth.html
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/1767/romeo.html
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/christie.jsrpages/scans/christie/gertrude22.jpg
http://www.wic.org/artwork/cleopatr.htm
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http://www.personcentered.org/carl/
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