All the World's a Stage

Act I scene iii

(CRABBE drops a lot of pans. It sounds nothing like thunder, but enter GINNY, HANNAH, and Interim Director and Mad Costumer Her Title Gets Longer Every Scene HERMIONE anyway)

HERMIONE: Where hast thou been, sister?

GINNY: Killing swine.

SEAMUS: Yeah, because that's what all girls do on Saturday nights.

DRACO: (dryly) Given your preferences, I suppose you would know.

SEAMUSL (starry-eyed) Ooooh... HEY, wait a minute....

HANNAH: Sister, where thou?

HERMIONE: A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:-- 'Give me,' quoth I: 'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger: But in a sieve I'll thither sail, And, like a rat without a tail, I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

RON: Whatever the hell that means. Someone's apparently got a little chestnut addiction.

HERMIONE: Shut up, Ron. Or else.

GINNY: I'll give thee a wind.

COLIN: I don't think that's really polite, in company.

HERMIONE: Thou'rt kind.

HANNAH: And I another.

COLIN: Ew! Were there beans with lunch or something?

HERMIONE: I myself have all the other, And the very ports they blow, All the quarters that they know I' the shipman's card. I will drain him dry as hay: Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his pent-house lid; He shall live a man forbid: Weary se'nnights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak and pine: Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tost. Look what I have.

HARRY: And next, on Incomprehensible Witch-speak Theater....

GINNY: Show me, show me.

HERMIONE: Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wreck'd as homeward he did come.

HARRY: ...Witches who dismember pilots, and the people who aren't horribly sickened by it.

(GOYLE stomps on the floor a few times, sumo-wrestler style)

HANNAH: A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come.

ALL THREE: The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine and thrice to mine And thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! the charm's wound up.

(Enter RON and HARRY)

RON: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

DRACO: Yes, because the weather outside is so obvious in here.

HARRY: How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these So wither'd and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught That man may question? You seem to understand me, By each at once her chappy finger laying Upon her skinny lips: you should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so.

NEVILLE: ...Beards?

CRABBE: I gots pencils.

COLIN: What does that have to do with anything?

CRABBE: (giving NEVILLE and COLIN a 'you idiots' look) Drawin' beards on.

HANNAH: (shrilly) If anyone tries to draw a beard on me I will kick them in a very bad place!

SEAMUS: ...Like where?

HANNAH: The... the stomach! Yes! You won't be able to eat for at least three hours after I kick you there!

RON: Speak, if you can: what are you?

HERMIONE: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!

GINNY: All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

HANNAH: All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

DEAN: Right now, however, you're screwed.

HARRY: Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth, Are ye fantastical, or that indeed Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner You greet with present grace and great prediction Of noble having and of royal hope, That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favours nor your hate.

DRACO: (reading ahead) Be careful what you wish for.

HERMIONE: Hail!

GINNY: Hail!

HANNAH: Hail!

SEAMUS: Forsooth!

DEAN: Snow!

CRABBE: Puppies!

HERMIONE: Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

PANSY: (stomps back in, completely cleaned off and clothes changed) Contradict yourself much?

GINNY: Not so happy, yet much happier.

DRACO: It's a contest, apparently.

HANNAH: Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none: So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

HERMIONE: Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

SEAMUS: Forsooth!

DEAN: Stop that!

SEAMUS: ...I got carried away by the repetition.

RON: Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis; But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman; and to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief, No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence You owe this strange intelligence? or why Upon this blasted heath you stop our way With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.

(The girls run offstage, giggling maniacally)

PANSY: If that's you lot's sense of humor, no wonder you're giving witches a bad name.

HERMIONE: (sweetly) Pansy, I still have ketchup, and we know I can take you down in a fight.

PANSY: Oh, please. You'd have to catch me, Granger. (PANSY promptly hides behind CRABBE)

HERMIONE: Cheater.

HARRY: The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?

RON: Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!

HARRY: Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?

HANNAH: Bad witches and drugs! Hermione, are you sure this is a school-appropriate play?

HERMIONE: Yes, Hannah. Now shut up.

DEAN: (to SEAMUS) What was that you said about Hufflepuffs only looking cute and cuddly?

SEAMUS: Well, maybe she really is. But she's the only one.

RON: Your children shall be kings.

HARRY: You shall be king.

RON: And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?

HARRY: To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?

(Enter NEVILLE, with BOBO THE TEDDY BEAR in a chokehold, and CRABBE, carrying a coloring book and a fistful of crayons)

NEVILLE: The king hath happily received, Macbeth, The news of thy success; and when he reads Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight, His wonders and his praises do contend Which should be thine or his: silenced with that, In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day, He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks, Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make, Strange images of death. As thick as hail Came post with post; and every one did bear Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence, And pour'd them down before him.

HANNAH: That's a lot of mail. Does he have to answer it all?

GOYLE: Hope not. That'd be a really boring play. 'Dear so-and-so, thank you for your kind words in re: my victory in battle....'

CRABBE: Yeah. Thanks.

HERMIONE: (shakes her head, sighs long-sufferingly) close enough.

NEVILLE: And, for an earnest of a greater honour, He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor: In which addition, hail, most worthy thane! For it is thine.

HARRY: What, can the devil speak true?

DRACO: When he feels like it. The rest of the time he just... (off Looks from other cast members) Oh, what? Like you never researched that.

HERMIONE: Well, yes, but... is that the voice of personal experience, Malfoy?

DRACO: Will saying 'yes' make you get the joke?

HERMIONE: Probably not, all things considered.

DRACO: Then no.

RON: The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me In borrow'd robes?

CRABBE: Nice robes... not too big.

RON: (Aside) Glamis, and thane of Cawdor! The greatest is behind. (To NEVILLE and CRABBE) Thanks for your pains.

HARRY: (quietly) Particularly that nagging one in your left knee....

RON: (To HARRY) Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me Promised no less to them?

GOYLE: Biscuits are better.

NEVILLE: Mmmm, biscuits. Why do mad old soothsayers never say things like 'And there shall be shortbread biscuits in your future!'

GOYLE: Shortbread's nice.

NEVILLE: But no, it's always 'king hereafter' this and 'die in horrible pain' that....

SEAMUS: Okay, now you two are even annoying me.

HARRY: That trusted home Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence. Cousins, a word, I pray you.

GINNY: Behold, the foreshadowing!

RON: (Aside) Two truths are told, As happy prologues to the swelling act

SEAMUS: Swelling act? Oooh... picture.....

HANNAH: Hermione, are you sure this is an appropriate play?

RON: Of the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen.

SEAMUS: Aww, the 'swelling act' is music? That blows.

DRACO: No, Finnegan, you do.

HANNAH: Hermione, are you really, really sure?

HERMIONE: (glaring at SEAMUS and DRACO) Yes, Hannah. I'm sure. Focus on the scrip and ignore Seamus, and you can have hot cocoa and a lobotomy later.

RON:(Aside) Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success, Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor: If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings: My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is But what is not.

HARRY: Look, how our partner's rapt.

DEAN: Probably something to do with the monologue about fate and stuff. Don't pay him any mind.

NEVILLE: A biscuit would fix it.

HERMIONE: Do not start with the biscuits again, Neville, or so help me Merlin, I'll....

NEVILLE: Tie me to a chair and gag me?

HERMIONE: ...No. I'll make you wear the dress.

NEVILLE: I'll shut up about the biscuits.

HERMIONE: I thought you would.

RON: [Aside] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir.

HARRY: New horrors come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould But with the aid of use.

RON: (Aside) Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

HARRY: Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

COLIN: Isn't it getting rather crowded on his leisure? (beat) What's a leisure?

SEAMUS: It's a....

HANNAH: No! No more corrupting!

DRACO: You haven't been paying attention, have you, Abbott?

RON: Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are register'd where every day I turn The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king. Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other.

SEAMUS: Ewwww, romance. Come on! Whips. Smiting. Hermione, can we go back to Othello?

HERMIONE: No.

HARRY: Very gladly.

SEAMUS: Harry agrees with me!

HERMIONE: That's his line, idiot. This is a play. Plays have lines.

RON: Till then, enough. Come, friends.

SEAMUS: Ooooh....

(HANNAH kicks SEAMUS in the stomach. He doubles over, gasping for breath)

SEAMUS: Oooow....

HANNAH: No more corrupting!!

DEAN: (walks to SEAMUS to help him up) You all right, mate?

SEAMUS: (still gasping) Oh sure... that really is a very bad place to be kicked....