The Play's the Thing

(Enter DEAN and DRACO. DEAN paces around the stage like a gazelle on steroids, never staying still for more than a few seconds.)

DRACO: Will you think so?

SEAMUS: (offstage) Hey! Think what? Did I miss something in between scenes? How'd we get here?

LOCKHART: The magic of theatre, Mr. Finnegan. Now shut up.

DEAN: Think so, Iago!

COLIN: [offstage] Think what?

DRACO: What,
To kiss in private?

SEAMUS: (offstage, knowingly, to GINNY) That's the only way. McGonagall'd stick us in detention for a week for doing it in public.

DEAN: An unauthorized kiss.

DRACO: Or to be naked with her friend in bed
An hour or more, not meaning any harm?

SEAMUS: That would be a waste of a perfectly good hour is what it would be.

DEAN: Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
It is hypocrisy against the devil:
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.

DRACO: So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip:
But if I give my wife a handkerchief,--

DEAN: What then?

DRACO: Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord; and, being hers,
She may, I think, bestow't on any man.

HERMIONE: Good answer.

DEAN: She is protectress of her honour too:
May she give that?

DRACO: Her honour is an essence that's not seen;
They have it very oft that have it not:
But, for the handkerchief,--

DEAN: By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.
Thou said'st, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all--he had my handkerchief.

SEAMUS: Is it just me, or is Othello making less and less sense?

DRACO: Ay, what of that?

DEAN: That's not so good now.

HARRY: (imitating DEAN) In fact, I'll even go so far as to say I'm displeased. Yes. Definitely miffed.

DRACO: What,
If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?
Or heard him say,--as knaves be such abroad,
Who having, by their own importunate suit,
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
But they must blab--

HERMIONE: Oh, you're just being provocative now.

GOYLE: Huh?

HERMIONE: Basically, he just said, "Well, what if I told you he said your mother dressed you funny?"

GOYLE: (impressed) Wow. You're smart.

DEAN: Hath he said any thing?

GOYLE: (helpfully) Your mum dresses you funny.

DRACO: He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,
No more than he'll unswear.

DEAN: What hath he said?

DRACO: 'Faith, that he did--I know not what he did.

HARRY: A little shaky on the dismount there, Iago.

DEAN: What? what?

DRACO: Lie--

DEAN: With her?

DRACO: With her, on her; what you will.

SEAMUS: Ooh, now we're getting somewhere! Do we get details?

DEAN: Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when
they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.
--Handkerchief--confessions--handkerchiief!--To
confess, and be hanged for his labour;--first, to be
hanged, and then to confess.--I tremble at it.
Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing
passion without some instruction. It is not words
that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.
--Is't possible?--Confess--handkerchieff!--O devil!--

(DEAN looks at his script, then shrugs and sits on the ground crosslegged and shuts his eyes.)

DEAN: Ommmmm...

LOCKHART: Mr. Thomas, what exactly are you doing? In no instance does this script call for transcendental meditation.

DEAN: I'm in a trance.

HERMIONE: Dean, that means an epileptic fit.

DEAN: Oh. (He immediately collapses over onto his side and starts flopping around like a landed fish)

DRACO: Work on,
My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;
And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! my lord!
My lord, I say! Othello!
(Enter HARRY. DEAN's flopping around causes him to fall off the stage)
How now, Cassio!

HARRY: What's the matter?

DRACO: My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy:
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.

(from in front of the stage come muffled sounds of pain)

HARRY: Rub him about the temples.

SEAMUS: (runs over to where DEAN is lying) Oh, sure, Harry. That's really going to help.

DRACO: No, forbear;
The lethargy must have his quiet course:
If not, he foams at mouth and by and by
Breaks out to savage madness. Look he stirs:
Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
He will recover straight: when he is gone,
I would on great occasion speak with you.
(Exit HARRY. DEAN crawls back onto the stage)
How is it, general? have you not hurt your head?

SEAMUS: (offstage, darkly) No, but that's the only thing that's not gonna be bruised tomorrow.

DEAN: Dost thou mock me?

RON: (offstage, sarcastically) Why, whatever gives you that idea?

DRACO: (slightly hurt) I mock you! no, by heaven.
Would you would bear your fortune like a man!

DEAN: A horned man's a monster and a beast.

GINNY: Well, that or has serious fashion issues.

DRACO: There's many a beast then in a populous city,
And many a civil monster.

DEAN: Did he confess it?

HARRY: Yes, he killed the butler in the water closet with the apple core. You win.

DRACO: Good sir, be a man;
Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked
May draw with you: there's millions now alive
That nightly lie in those unproper beds
Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is better.
O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know;
And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.

DEAN: O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.

RON: (darkly) A wise guy, maybe.

DRACO: Stand you awhile apart;
Confine yourself but in a patient list.
Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief--
A passion most unsuiting such a man--
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,
And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy,
Bade him anon return and here speak with me;
The which he promised. Do but encave yourself,
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
That dwell in every region of his face;
For I will make him tell the tale anew,
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
He hath, and is again to cope your wife:
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience;
Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,
And nothing of a man.

DEAN: Dost thou hear, Iago?
I will be found most cunning in my patience;
But--dost thou hear?--most bloody.

SEAMUS: Nothing wrong with a little blood, Dean....

DRACO: That's not amiss;
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?
(DEAN moves to far stage right)
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
A housewife that by selling her desires
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature
That dotes on Cassio; as 'tis the strumpet's plague
To beguile many and be beguiled by one:
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes:
(Re-enter HARRY, stage left)
As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;
And his unbookish jealousy must construe
Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures and light behavior,
Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?

HARRY: The worser that you give me the addition
Whose want even kills me.

DRACO: [consolingly] Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.
(He lowers his voice)
Now, if this suit lay in Bianca's power,
How quickly should you speed!

HARRY: Alas, poor caitiff!

DEAN: Look, how he laughs already!

DRACO: I never knew woman love man so.

HARRY: Alas, poor rogue! I think, i' faith, she loves me.

COLIN: Pansy?! No-one ever tells me anything....

DEAN: Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.

DRACO: Do you hear, Cassio?

DEAN: Now he importunes him
To tell it o'er: go to; well said, well said.

DRACO: She gives it out that you shall marry her:
Do you intend it?

(HARRY just laughs and shakes his head)

DEAN: Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?

COLIN: Harry's not Italian, Dean....

HARRY: I marry her! what? a customer! Prithee, bear some charity to my wit: do
not think it so unwholesome.

DEAN: So, so, so, so: they laugh that win.

SEAMUS: And losers weepers. So there.

DRACO: 'Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.

HARRY: Prithee, say true.

DRACO: I am a very villain else.

RON: You're a villain anyway. So what?

DEAN: Have you scored me? Well.

CRABBE: (panicked) We're 'posed to be keepin' score?!

HARRY: This is the monkey's own giving out: she is
persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and
flattery, not out of my promise.

(DRACO laughs, turning one of his hand motions into a discreet beckoning to DEAN)

DEAN: Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.

HARRY: She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was the
other day talking on the sea-bank with certain Venetians; and thither comes
the bauble, and, by this hand, she falls me thus about my neck--

DEAN: Crying 'O dear Cassio!' as it were: his gesture imports it.

HARRY: So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me; so hales, and pulls me: ha, ha, ha!

DEAN: Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O, I see that nose of
yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.

CRABBE: (hopeful) Puppy?

HARRY: Well, I must leave her company.

DRACO: Before me! look, where she comes. (under his breath) Hide me....

HARRY: (also under his breath) You have to suffer for your art, don't you know that?
(more loudly) 'Tis such another fitchew! marry a perfumed one.
(PANSY stomps onstage) What do you mean by this haunting of me?

PANSY: (shrilly) Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by
that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to take it. I
must take out the work?--A likely piece of work, that you should find it
in your chamber, and not know who left it there! This is some minx's token,
and I must take out the work? There; give it your hobby-horse: wheresoever
you had it, I'll take out no work on't.

HARRY: How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!

DEAN: By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!

PANSY: An you'll come to supper to-night, you may; an you will not, come when
you are next prepared for.

(She flounces offstage in a huff, leaving HARRY with the pink scarf)

GINNY: (mystified) How'd she get that back? Didn't Harry have it last?

DRACO: After her, after her.

HARRY: 'Faith, I must; she'll rail in the street else.

DRACO: Will you sup there?

HARRY: 'Faith, I intend so.

DRACO: Well, I may chance to see you; for I would very fain speak with you.

HARRY: Prithee, come; will you? (undertone) Don't leave me alone with her....

SEAMUS: (offstage) Oops, Harry's lost it. (sing- song) Harry... it's a play... it's not real...Harry....

DRACO: (smiling) Go to; say no more.

(Exit HARRY, who gets as far away from PANSY as he can)

DEAN: (advancing to center stage) How shall I murder him, Iago?

DRACO: Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?

DEAN: O Iago!

DRACO: And did you see the handkerchief?

SEAMUS: Yeah, he sneezed in it. I saw him.

DEAN: Was that mine?

SEAMUS: Well, it was. You sure you want it back now?

DRACO: Yours by this hand: and to see how he prizes the
foolish woman your wife! she gave it him, and he
hath given it his whore.

COLIN: Wow, when you put it like that, it sounds a little cold, doesn't it?

HERMIONE: Yes, Colin. Do you want to be gagged again?

COLIN: But I didn't do anything!

HERMIONE: Do you?

COLIN: (pouty) No.

HERMIONE: Then shut up.

DEAN: I would have him nine years a-killing.
A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman!

DRACO: Nay, you must forget that.

SEAMUS: Yeah, it could spoil his whole plan if you don't.

DEAN: Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night; for she shall
not live: no, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my
hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by an
emperor's side and command him tasks.

DRACO: Nay, that's not your way.

SEAMUS: Wanna bet?

DEAN: Hang her! I do but say what she is: so delicate
with her needle: an admirable musician: O! she
will sing the savageness out of a bear: of so high
and plenteous wit and invention:--

DRACO: She's the worse for all this.

DEAN: O, a thousand thousand times: and then, of so
gentle a condition!

SEAMUS: Hey, I'm gentle!

DRACO: Ay, too gentle.

DEAN: Nay, that's certain: but yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!

RON: Oh, the pain, the pain...

DRACO: If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her
patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes
near nobody.

HARRY: Ha! Take that!

DEAN: I will chop her into messes: cuckold me!

DRACO: O, 'tis foul in her.

DEAN: With mine officer!

SEAMUS: More kink!

DRACO: That's fouler.

SEAMUS: Nuh-uh!

DEAN: Get me some poison, Iago; this night: I'll not
expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty
unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago.

DRACO: Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated.

HERMIONE: Poetic injustice....

DEAN: Good, good: the justice of it pleases: very good.

DRACO: And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker: you shall hear more by midnight.

RON: Already got a headstone picked out and everything....

DEAN: Excellent good.
(There is a brief silence. DEAN frowns, then shrugs.)
...What trumpet is that same?

DRACO: Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico
Come from the duke: and, see, your wife is with him.

(Enter NEVILLE with his teddy bear and GINNY. They are flanked by CRABBE and GOYLE. CRABBE is scribbling in COLIN's script)

NEVILLE: Saveyouworthygeneral?

DEAN: With all my heart, sir.

NEVILLE: The...the...the.... (He goes white and sways on his feet)

HERMIONE: (encouragingly) Just relax, Neville. It'll be over soon.

NEVILLE: (speaking into his teddy bear) The duke and senators of Venice greet you?

(Everyone stands still for a minute, then GOYLE, seized by a flash of inspiration, takes NEVILLE's teddy bear and gives it to DEAN.)

NEVILLE: (shrieks) BOBO!!

DEAN: I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.

SEAMUS: (offstage, wide-eyed) No wonder the man's a general!

LOCKHART: Mind out of the gutter, if you please, Mr. Finnegan.

(DEAN holds the teddy bear at arm's length for a moment, then holds it up to his ear as if listening to it)

GINNY: And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?

DRACO: (bowing) I am very glad to see you, signior
Welcome to Cyprus.

NEVILLE: (grabbing at his teddy bear. DEAN dodges deftly out of the way) I thank you How does Lieutenant Cassio?

DRACO: Lives, sir.

GINNY: Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord
An unkind breach: but you shall make all well.

DEAN: Are you sure of that?

GINNY: My lord?

DEAN: (To Bobo the teddy bear) 'This fail you not to do, as you will--'

NEVILLE: (tries again to get Bobo away from DEAN) He did not call he's busy in the paper Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio?

GINNY: A most unhappy one: I would do much
To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.

DEAN: (throttles Bobo Fire and brimstone!

GINNY: (startled) My lord?

DEAN: (to Bobo) Are you wise?

GINNY: What, is he angry?

SEAMUS: Oh, now why would you think that?

NEVILLE: May be the letter moved him For, as I think, they do command him home Deputing Cassio in his government?

GINNY: Trust me, I am glad on't.

DEAN: Indeed!

GINNY: My lord?

DEAN: I am glad to see you mad.

COLIN: I didn't know teddy bears could get mad....

GINNY: Why, sweet Othello,--

DEAN: (Slaps her) Devil!

RON: Hey! Knock it off, Dean, or I swear I'll....

GINNY: I have not deserved this.

NEVILLE: My lord this would not be believed in Venice Though I should swear I saw't 'tis very much Make her amends she weeps?

DEAN: (shaking Bobo, still gripping it firmly around the neck) O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Out of my sight!

GINNY: I will not stay to offend you.

SEAMUS: She'll go somewhere else to offend you.

(Exit GINNY, massaging her face)

SEAMUS: Well, now both the Weasleys have been smacked in the face. Who's next, then?

NEVILLE: Truly, an obedient lady I do beseech your lordship call her back?

DEAN: Mistress!

GINNY: (poking her head out onto the stage) My lord?

DEAN: What would you with her, sir?

SEAMUS: Ask a stupid question....

NEVILLE: (blushes and forgets stage fright) Who, I, my lord?

DEAN: Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn:
Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on,
And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;
And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,
Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.
Concerning this, sir,--O well-painted passion!--
I am commanded home. Get you away;
I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,
And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!
(Re-exit GINNY, in a huff)
Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,
I do entreat that we may sup together:
You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.--Goats and monkeys!

(Exit DEAN, who immediately goes over to GINNY and begins apologizing. He gives her Bobo the teddy bear)

GINNY: (sniffley) You just don't want Ron to beat you to a pulp.

DEAN: Well, there's that, too.

NEVILLE: Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate Call all in all sufficient? Is this the nature Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue The shot of accident, nor dart of chance, Could neither graze nor pierce?

HERMIONE: (impressed) Neville?

DRACO: He is much changed.

NEVILLE: Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain?

DRACO: He's that he is: I may not breathe my censure
What he might be: if what he might he is not,
I would to heaven he were!

NEVILLE: What, strike his wife!

DRACO: 'Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew
That stroke would prove the worst!

NEVILLE: Is it his use?
Or did the letters work upon his blood,
And new-create this fault?

SEAMUS: Who are you and what did you do with the guy who threw up on Hermione's shoes two acts ago?

DRACO: Alas, alas!
It is not honesty in me to speak
What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,
And his own courses will denote him so
That I may save my speech: do but go after,
And mark how he continues.

NEVILLE: (sadly) I am sorry that I am deceived in him.

(All exit. A round of applause goes up for NEVILLE, started by HARRY and DRACO)

HERMIONE: (kisses NEVILLE on the cheek) I knew you had it in you, Neville!

NEVILLE: ...It wasn't so bad... can I have Bobo back now?