Grim-All-Day

A Play by Chas LiBretto

December 13. 2017

Agent contact: Katie Gamelli [email protected] A3 Artists Agency Literary Division The Empire State Building Fifth Ave. 38th Floor New York, NY 10118 1

Dramatis Personae Actor 1: Joseph Grimaldi Actor 2: JS Grimaldi / John Grimaldi Actor 3: Mary Actor 4: Signor Grimaldi / John Philip Kemble / Charles Actor 5: Charles Dickens Actor 6: Columbine / Young JS / Young Grimaldi Time: 1832 and earlier Place: London

I make you laugh at night but I am Grim All Day. - Joseph Grimaldi

Nobody likes a clown at midnight. - Stephen King

2 Scene 1 1832

London, 1832. Music from Regency-era Pantomime shows plays softly and sadly in the background, while the lights brighten very, very slowly on a dilapidated old theatre.

GRIMALDI Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A man goes to visit a doctor to treat his melancholy. “I can’t eat,” he says. “I can’t sleep. I feel constantly miserable. Please help me, doctor.” The doctor looks him over and he says “Laughter is the best medicine, my friend. Take yourself off to Covent Garden Theatre where you will find the Great Grimaldi performing in ‘Harlequin and Mother Goose.’ It is exquisitely funny and will cure you of all your ills without any pills or potions from my cabinet.” The man looks at the doctor a moment. “Ah,” he says. “That won’t help.” “Well, why not, sir?” The man shrugs. “I am Grimaldi.” CHARLES (off) Mister Grimaldi? Ah, Mister Grimaldi? Are you there? GRIMALDI (off) I’m up on stage. Come over here, will you?

A young man steps into the theatre, looking lost.

CHARLES Quite an adventure getting here…. GRIMALDI I decided if you really want to get to know me, you’ll want to see where the work is done. CHARLES And this is where it’s done?

3 GRIMALDI Well, yes, what’s wrong with it? CHARLES Just a bit more run down then I expected, that’s all. GRIMALDI They all look like this when the lights are down. CHARLES You know, it really is quite an honor, Master Grimaldi. I saw you once as a boy. GRIMALDI Only once? Must have made quite an impression. CHARLES Well, no, I saw you subsequently when I was older. But that first time… I must have been seven years old. You were bigger than life, sir. Every single person in that theatre was roaring with laughter. I felt I was being let in on a secret That the adults were letting me peak in on their lives. That I was getting a taste of how they lived. The most famous man in England. I’ll never forget it, sir, I’ll - GRIMALDI Yes, yes. I’m sure you won’t. Seven years old, what was that, last week?

CHARLES I’m twenty-five. GRIMALDI Incidentally, I read some of your Boz stories. CHARLES Did you like them? GRIMALDI Well enough. CHARLES They’re journeyman work. Not the kind of material I’m working on now. Have you been keeping up with Pickwick?

4 GRIMALDI Here and there. I’ve been kept rather busy with my own scribblings. CHARLES Oh, Yes! I read through what you sent me! GRIMALDI You did? And? Well? What did you think? CHARLES Well, they’re a bit…um…well… I mean… GRIMALDI They’re a mess. I know. CHARLES Not that the papers aren’t completely fascinating! Because they are! They really, really – GRIMALDI I’ve gotten as far as I can without help. CHARLES Help? What would you like me to do? GRIMALDI Rewrite them. CHARLES Oh. Well, you know, I am rather busy, Master Grimaldi. GRIMALDI You know, working with me…it’s bound to brighten your own star. Broaden your readership. Expand your audience. CHARLES I’m sure that’s true, but it’s more a matter of time for me and - GRIMALDI I’ll pay.

5 CHARLES Like I said, I have my own work to do, Deadlines to meet There simply isn’t a gap in my schedule. You see, I’m about to start work on a novel about a fellow who - GRIMALDI Handsomely. CHARLES So, if we’re working together should I keep calling you Master Grimaldi or – GRIMALDI Call me Joseph. Or Joey if you prefer. CHARLES Why do you want this? GRIMALDI The book? Secrets are exhausting, Mister Dickens. You forget you’re keeping them But they weigh on you Make your back stoop And whisper in your ear when you’re trying to sleep. I’m tired of secrets. CHARLES Well, let’s start at the beginning. That seems appropriate. GRIMALDI The beginning. Yes. I’ll come around to that eventually. I think I’d like to tell you about my son first.

Lights shift.

Scene 2 1812 London

GRIMALDI, twenty years younger, and his 12-year-old son are in an old theatrical dressing room. There is an assortment of props and costumes in a trunk by their feet. 6 The son wears pantaloons and an absurd ruffled shirt.

GRIMALDI Now, pay attention, JS. Are you listening? JS Yes, father.

GRIMALDI nods. Silence.

GRIMALDI Still listening? JS I think so.

Silence.

GRIMALDI Well, I don’t know what for. We don’t speak in pantomime. So, if you’re waiting for Harlequin to talk You’ll be waiting a very long time indeed. JS Don’t you tell jokes? GRIMALDI The situation is the joke, JS. Life is the joke. We don’t tell jokes We are the -

JS starts eating a cucumber.

That’s a prop. Don’t eat that. JS It’s a cucumber. GRIMALDI It’s a cucumber and it’s a prop. JS But mum makes cucumber sandwiches, doesn’t she? GRIMALDI She does, but 7 This cucumber is very important. Do you know why? JS No. GRIMALDI It fell from the body Of the most horrible Most monstrous creature In Pantomime… The Vegetable Homunculus! Boo! JS Aaah!

JS drops the cucumber.

GRIMALDI All right, now. Are you ready? JS I think so. GRIMALDI Everything in front of you?

JS nods.

Let’s begin then. Shirt? JS Great and loutish! GRIMALDI Stylish too, I should hope. Ruffles? JS Check! GRIMALDI Pantaloons? JS Dad, you can see I have ‘em on! GRIMALDI Make sure of everything. Prepare for war. And now 8 Watch a master at work.

The lights shift. The music is completely over the top and it begins with a flourish! A basket on wheels driven by dogs with chickens on their backs breaks through the paper wall. Like a demented carriage coach, inside the basket is the driver, a CLOWN, GRIMALDI, wielding a stick with streamers. He leaps from the basket and tumbles gracefully to a stop before spinning to his feet and catching a musical guitar- like instrument thrown from off-stage. The clown begins to sing!

GRIMALDI (singing) A little old woman, her living she got by selling hot codlins, hot, hot, hot. And this little old woman, who codlins sold, tho’ her codlins were hot, she felt herself cold. So to keep herself warm, she thought it no sin to fetch for herself a quartern of …

He pauses for the audience to boisterously shout “Gin!” at him. Maybe they don’t. Maybe one guy does.

GRIMALDI stops the song. He looks at the audience.

Oh, for shame! I said… CHARLES (voice) Yes, yes “for shame, for shame,” I know that old gag.

Lights shift. CHARLES is still taking notes.

GRIMALDI I thought you said you admired those old routines? 9 CHARLES I do, of course, and we’ll spend plenty of time on them but I wonder if you might elaborate a bit more on your son. GRIMALDI Why? CHARLES He was a big part of those routines, wasn’t he? GRIMALDI Some of them, yes. CHARLES What is he doing these days? GRIMALDI What is he doing? He’s an actor, he’s performing. What do you think he’s doing? What have you heard? CHARLES Heard? Nothing. That’s what I mean: I’ve not heard his name spoken in a while. GRIMALDI Clearly you’ve never worked in show business. You’re in fashion, you’re out of fashion. And right now, a lot of us are out. CHARLES Not you. GRIMALDI At the moment. But it’s lean times for all of us these days. Times are changing. Less work, less – CHARLES Do you speak?

GRIMALDI No, it’s Pantomime. Come on, Charles, you know - CHARLES To your son.

10 GRIMALDI What? What are you getting at? CHARLES When was the last time you spoke to your son?

Lights shift.

Scene 3 1832

Thunder and lightning. GRIMALDI stares out at the weather. His wife MARY looks at him with concern.

MARY Should you be standing so close to the window, dear? GRIMALDI What’s wrong with it? MARY Well, there’s thunder and lightning and I wouldn’t want you struck, is all. It really is rather frightening, isn’t it? I’m glad we’re in here together. Safe and warm. GRIMALDI Safe and warm. And out of work. MARY Oh, don’t you worry about that. I know you want to get back to it, But maybe try to enjoy it, won’t you? It feels so natural to me Having an evening in with you, don’t you think? GRIMALDI Saturday night. Don’t really see what all the fuss is about. I suppose we’ll go to church in the morning I suppose that would feel natural. MARY Don’t laugh. Perhaps we should!

He looks at her.

11 Smiles, despite himself.

GRIMALDI What does one do? MARY Well, there’s the procession And the Book of Common Prayer And the sermon and there’s music from the choir And a Deacon and There’s a lot of people take comfort in it. GRIMALDI You? MARY I still go when I can. When you’re sleeping Or traveling. GRIMALDI I didn’t know that. MARY I’ve still a few secrets, Joey! Rest assured of that. Even long marriages have a few. Especially long marriages!

Silence.

GRIMALDI Do you suppose he’s all right. MARY I don’t know, Joey. GRIMALDI I hope he’s somewhere dry.

Silence.

Thunder. Rain fall. She goes over to her husband and touches him But he flinches. She goes away, hurt, but not wanting to show it. GRIMALDI suddenly points at something outside the window.

GRIMALDI There! 12 Do you see that! MARY What? GRIMALDI Look! Standing in the street. MARY I don’t see anything. GRIMALDI You’re blind. MARY It’s dark, Joey. GRIMALDI Wait for the flash. He’s just standing there in the rain.

Lightning flashes!

Scene 4 1832

The adult JS Grimaldi comes out, dressed for a Shakespearean performance.

JS “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

There’s some heckling in the audience.

How weary, stale flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of the world! Fie on’t! ah fie! ‘tis an unweed garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

In the audience we hear someone mockingly repeat “That it should come to this.” And then blow a raspberry.

But two months dead:

13

“Wish you were dead!” Laughter.

Nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother a That he might not – “

He stops the speech. He looks to the audience.

All right, who the hell is that making all that noise! I say, speak up! What, gone quiet? No more to say? Yes? That’s what I thought “That he might not beteem The winds of heaven

More heckling.

Who’s that laughing?! It’s not a funny speech! Who is that? No matter…I’ll come find you!

He trips and falls. He pulls himself up again and when he does. There is more laughter. He tries to overcome it, shouting

“…VISIT HER FACE TOO ROUGHLY! Heaven and Earth! Heaven and earth. Heaven and earth.

More laughing.

Stop laughing. Please. It isn’t supposed to be funny.

He sits down. The lights shift. It’s a bed. He lies down, and he looks up at the rafters.

Scene 5 14 1832 London

Sitting on a nearby stool, GRIMALDI stands up! GRIMALDI You’re awake. You’re awake! Oh thank god. Mary! Mary he’s – JS Do you mind not shouting? GRIMALDI Let me get you something. Water. Tea. Do you need -

JS I need you…to calm down. GRIMALDI I thought I’d lost you. I thought -

He gets down on his knees by the bed.

JS Stop. What are you doing? Get off the floor. Stop that. What the hell am I doing here anyway? GRIMALDI You turned up on our doorstep.

JS I did not. GRIMALDI You did. JS This was last night? Musta been rat-arsed to not remember that. When was the last time you changed these sheets anyway? GRIMALDI Two months ago. JS

15 That’s barbaric. GRIMALDI You turned up here two months ago. JS You’re lying. GRIMALDI I’m not. JS Two months asleep! How is that even possible? GRIMALDI Sleeping? Is that what you think you were doing? JS What? GRIMALDI You suffered hallucinations for weeks . Fits so severe the doctor put you in a straitjacket. JS I don’t believe you. GRIMALDI If I fetched your mother. Would you believe her? JS You’re a professional liar. Don’t even know when you’re doin’ it anymore. GRIMALDI I’ll fetch the doctor. JS That’s all right. I don’t want one. GRIMALDI Well, you’ve got one just the same. What’s the last thing you remember? JS Hamlet. GRIMALDI Hamlet?

16 JS A dream. GRIMALDI Last real memory. JS I was doing Hamlet. And a man was heckling me. And I threatened him. Tried to kill him. Got thrown out of the theatre. GRIMALDI What a terrible thing to dream. JS You asked. GRIMALDI You’ve never been Hamlet, though. JS I know. GRIMALDI It was Harlequin and Mother Bunch. That was where the heckler - JS It was a dream. I know I’ve not been Hamlet. I know that. I was dreaming.

GRIMALDI What else do you remember? JS You. Your face. And. A woman. GRIMALDI Who? Someone you were with that night? JS No. She was with you. She was your wife.

17 GRIMALDI You mean your mother. You mean Mary. JS I suppose. You didn’t kidnap me, did you? Police frown on that sort of thing, y’know. GRIMALDI You almost died. The doctor said to get a priest. JS Well, thanks for looking after me. Nice running into you. I’m off.

He attempts to get out of bed. An extremely sharp pain. He doesn’t make it out of bed.

GRIMALDI I wouldn’t do that if I were you… JS Good lord, what is that? GRIMALDI Bedsores? Feeble muscles?

JS It’s my bowels, not my bloody legs. What the hell have you been feeding me? Why’s it feel like my stomach’s full of razor blades? GRIMALDI The Doctor says you were poisoned. JS Who’d poison me? GRIMALDI I should say I don’t know! We hadn’t heard from you in over a year! What kind of company you keep Where you live I have absolutely no idea what’s happening with you. JS

18 And I was doing just fine in keeping it that way! GRIMALDI Well, then I guess you shouldn’t have turned up on my doorstep at four in the morning! JS You probably poisoned me to keep me here. GRIMALDI That’s reasonable. JS What’d I get poisoned with anyway If that’s the prevailing theory. GRIMALDI Doctor thought Mercury. JS Mercury. GRIMALDI What he said. JS Who’d feed me mercury? GRIMALDI That is the question. JS Don’t look at me like that

GRIMALDI Like what? JS I haven’t tried anything since Well, since the last time. GRIMALDI Good. JS Anyway, Mercury’s much too subtle a method for me. GRIMALDI Well, I’ve moved the sharp objects from the house just the same.

19 JS Not all of them. Could always lacerate myself on a window like before. Can’t get rid of glass windows, can you? Could always slit my throat again Wouldn’t that be a hoot. GRIMALDI JS, please… JS You get a look at my scar while I was sleeping? Couldn’t do Hamlet now even if I wanted to. ‘To Be or Not to Be, That is the Question’ well, he clearly made up his mind at least once, hasn’t he?’ GRIMALDI Stop it!

GRIMALDI knocks a potted plant off the table.

JS You broke something. Better get it away from me.

GRIMALDI Was it Kemble? You palling ‘round with him again?

JS again tries to get out of bed. First one foot on the ground Then the other.

You won’t get very far. You need to exercise your legs first. JS Please be quiet.

Silence.

GRIMALDI We’ve missed you. JS Who’s we? GRIMALDI Your mother and I. JS 20 Ah. GRIMALDI It’s been hard not seeing you this last year not knowing where you’ve been. You are always welcome here, you know. It’s odd Lifting you in my arms from the doorstep It was like you were a boy again I forgot my age and thought we’d been given the chance to start again. Isn’t that funny?

The lights change.

Scene 6 1832

A table wheels on-stage. There is a body covered by a sheet lying there. There is a basket full of vegetables beneath it. GRIMALDI takes a moment to look beneath the sheet. He snaps on some rubber gloves and a medical apron and gets to work. He delivers the speech while working. GRIMALDI JS made his professional debut as an eleven-year old. Robinson Crusoe. The Pantomime. Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Opposite me. We followed it up with Don Juan. He played Scaramouche, with me in the title role. It seemed right to train him for this kind of work.

He finds the half-eaten cucumber and sticks it under the sheet. He takes out a gigantic pumpkin. He sticks it under the sheet where the head would be.

You probably don’t realize this, Charles But my father started me in the business when I was younger than JS. And though I was against the idea at first, He proved such a natural It seemed criminal to keep him from it. When he was twelve, I fell ill. A seizure kept me house-bound for four months. 21 “Premature Old-Age,” they said. I couldn’t work And my son had to step up And perform without me by his side. And he rose to the challenge marvelously. Such a burden Would ruin some children But not my son.

It’s sort of difficult to tell what he’s doing, but we watch as he continually stuffs a new, giant vegetable underneath the sheet.

And Charles you want to know the truth? I hadn’t fallen ill at all. I was testing my son to see if he really had it. Manipulative? Perhaps, but certainly no worse than what my father put me through.

He pulls the sheet away. The Vegetable Homunculus lays there lifeless. Some of you remember my father. The greatest clown that ever lived. My father… My father was a difficult man. A rough man. An Italian, An immigrant Who never fully grasped hold of the King’s English, Which might, perhaps, explain why Pantomime became his chosen vocation. It’s no secret that Italy produced the most talented and sought-after comedians in those days. It’s got something to do with the Catholic Church, if you want my opinion. The spiritual Tyranny acts as a large weight on the Italian people, and the only way for them to keep from going mad is to look for a laugh! It’s the only manner in which the poor cramped wretches can discharge a free thought. The greater the weight, the more bitter the satire. The worse the oppression, the more exquisite the buffoonery! The…! But I digress.

Thunder in the distance. 22

I hated my father. He was a monster. An abusive tyrant.

His father enters as described with his son, YOUNG GRIMALDI, in tow.

Oftentimes, he would force me to walk with him to my grandfather’s house in Bloomsbury in our Sunday best – you think my father’s English was rough, good heavens. In my father’s case, he would don an emerald green jacket and satin waistcoat embroidered with large flowers, matching green breeches, and a laced shirt and cravat, with ruffles at his wrists and buckles on his knees and shoes, topped with a jeweled cane and a cocked hat.

His father takes a seat and promptly falls asleep. YOUNG GRIMALDI pokes at the Vegetable Homunculus.

He looks a most demented leprechaun, doesn’t he? Sometimes the pack of taunting children who’d follow us would grow a street or two long. SIGNOR Joey. Joey. Quiet down just a minute, eh? Just a moment. I having most strange dream. GRIMALDI It’s impossible for me not to conjure up my dad when I do these old routines. The Signor Giuseppe Grimaldi! SIGNOR Who else I be? Who you talking to? You wake me up. GRIMALDI Even after all this time. I can still conjure that syphilitic complexion As though he were right there in the room with me… SIGNOR What you say?

A ten year old GRIMALDI enters the space.

23

YOUNG GRIMALDI Nothing father. SIGNOR You watch your mouth around me, boy. You think you big shot, running around London theatre, but you only ten year old kid! You play little clowns, and monkeys, and imps but you no harlequin yet! You no forget who teach you everything! YOUNG GRIMALDI Yes, father. SIGNOR That real question, Joey. I no being rhetorical. Who teach you everything you know? YOUNG GRIMALDI You, Father. SIGNOR Yes. That’s right. Don’t you forget it, neither. YOUNG GRIMALDI I won’t, Father. SIGNOR My papa Iron Legs Grimaldi taught me how to clown, And his father John Baptist taught him everything he know about comedy too. He dentist, though, so it no help so much. YOUNG GRIMALDI Yes, Father. SINGOR What we do on stage last week? YOUNG GRIMALDI The routine. SIGNOR No! No! Not the routine, not the routine! You no remember? 24 I teach you again! YOUNG GRIMALDI I wandered…from my corner and – SIGNOR You stray from where I put you so I bring you on stage to teach you lesson! And now you no learn lesson – why I…! What I do?

YOUNG GRIMALDI You punished me. SIGNOR That’s right. YOUNG GRIMALDI Up on stage. SIGNOR Yes. YOUNG GRIMALDI In front of everyone. SIGNOR Okay, okay, no need to make big tragedy of it. I give you big walloping in front of the crowd. YOUNG GRIMALDI Yes. SIGNOR And what they do? YOUNG GRIMALDI They laughed. SIGNOR They laughed? They laughed? They didn’t laugh! They screamed! They howled! They applauded! They jumped from their seats! You get a good write-up next day!! I make a your brother read review to me. They call me great teacher to make you perform so natural!

25 YOUNG GRIMALDI You’re a great teacher, father. SIGNOR You never more great than when you suffering. You no forget that. YOUNG GRIMALDI I won’t. SIGNOR Comedy only funny when balanced by pain and misery. Is a truth. YOUNG GRIMALDI Yes father. SIGNOR I tell your brother too. Your brother gonna get a walloping if he no remember it. Where is that brother of yours, anyway? YOUNG GRIMALDI He ran away, father. SIGNOR You very funny, Joey! Where is he? YOUNG GRIMALDI He’s gone.

Pause.

SIGNOR If you making joke, you maybe save it for the paying audience, yeah? YOUNG GRIMALDI It’s no joke! He came in here this morning to tell you – SIGNOR What, when I sleeping? YOUNG GRIMALDI We thought We thought you were dead. SIGNOR No joke about that. YOUNG GRIMALDI you were lying right here. 26 You had one of your spells. And – SIGNOR What spells? I no have no spells!

YOUNG GRIMALDI You do, father. You were sitting in your chair at breakfast and we thought. I thought I thought you were dead. SIGNOR Dead? YOUNG GRIMALDI You didn’t look like you were breathing. SIGNOR Saints! Is the dream! Oh no. I dream the Devil tell me I die on first Friday of the Month! What day is it? YOUNG GRIMALDI What?

He grabs his son and starts shaking him.

SIGNOR What day is it? What day is it?! Is life or death question! Tell me the day, damn you! YOUNG GRIMALDI Tuesday! SIGNOR Which Tuesday? YOUNG GRIMALDI What? SIGNOR Which Tuesday?! Which Tuesday? It first Tuesday of the month? YOUNG GRIMALDI 27 I – uh – it’s the Second. The second Tuesday of the month. SIGNOR Second Tuesday of the month comes after first Friday.

Pause. I safe for anoder month.

He drops YOUNG GRIMALDI to the ground. Thank god. I beat the devil! You hear me? I beat the devil!

YOUNG GRIMALDI quietly cries on the floor.

You make sure I really dead when that day comes, you unnerstand me?! You make sure I dead!! Don’t you dare bury me alive! Don’t you dare do it!! YOU UNERSTAND ME!???! YOUNG GRIMALDI I won’t, dad! I won’t! SIGNOR You better not. You leave me to suffocate in coffin and I come back from dead and haunt you and drive you crazy. Don’t forget. YOUNG GRIMALDI We tried to wake you up! We really tried, father. We thought it was like that time when you pretended… SIGNOR I no pretend nothing. YOUNG GRIMALDI You did! SIGNOR I never did. YOUNG GRIMALDI You were lying dead that time and we came in –

28 SIGNOR Ha! Ha! Now I remember! Good memory. Yes I fake my death to see if you boys really love your father or whether you just interested in inheritance. We play little joke on you boys, me and footman. I lay on table with sheet over me and he call you in to break the news. YOUNG GRIMALDI I knew you weren’t dead. We both knew. SIGNOR I fooled you! I sure fooled a you both! You let out long wail! I hear you!

YOUNG GRIMALDI lets out a long theatrical wail.

SIGNOR Yes! Like that! What, you was faking?!

YOUNG GRIMALDI smiles.

Oh, you good. You a natural actor, boy! YOUNG GRIMALDI And remember Johnny? Remember what he did?

The rage switch flips in SIGNOR. He smacks his son.

SIGNOR YOU THINK IT FUNNY!?!? Your brother – the little scoundrel – he start a singing and dancing around my corpse, clapping his grubby little hands!! YOUNG GRIMALDI And I – I called him a cruel boy. I did that father. SIGNOR 29 That’s cuz you a love your father! Or was it ‘cuz you knew I listening. You tell me or you get a walloping. YOUNG GRIMALDI No… SIGNOR He call you fool and say - YOUNG GRIMALDI “Now we can have his cuckoo-clock all to ourselves!”

SIGNOR My cuckoo-clock!!!! I beat that snot-nosed little brat till he wished he was the dead one!! You remember? YOUNG GRIMALDI Yes. SIGNOR You go run and hide in coal cellar for four hours. But I know which a you is the one that loves his father. Where you say your brother go? YOUNG GRIMALDI Gravesend. The docks. He joined ship. SIGNOR What?! And he no tell me what he doing? YOUNG GRIMALDI He did! SIGNOR When? YOUNG GRIMALDI This morning! SIGNOR I was sleeping! I only fake a death once! I no do it twice. Agh, you boys is driving me so crazy! Get your coat! We go to docks and stop that little idiot right this 30 second! He only eight years old! YOUNG GRIMALDI John’s gone. They already left. He’s gone. SIGNOR Gone? Who give him money for kit and provisions? He steal it? YOUNG GRIMALDI … SIGNOR You better tell me now or – YOUNG GRIMALDI Richard. Mister Wroughton. SIGNOR The comedian give him money? Where get the money from? Comedians no have a money! YOUNG GRIMALDI I don’t know. SIGNOR That – oh, why he do that?! Who he think he is, the boy’s father? I kill them both! I -- ! What’s he doing giving away money, he no got more money than me! YOUNG GRIMALDI He told John he could pay it back when he comes to be captain someday. SIGNOR He say that? YOUNG GRIMALDI Yes, father. SIGNOR And John sail today?

31 YOUNG GRIMALDI He’s gone. He’s gonna go to the Cape! On a ship! On an East Indiaman, father! But the one he booked passaged for wasn’t leaving until next week, so he - SIGNOR He book passage! He only eight year old1 How long he plan this for?! YOUNG GRIMALDI He got to the dock and and he pulled off all his clothes Right down to his breeches and and he jumped in the water T’wards the first ship he saw! The King’s vessel! I screamed ‘John’ ‘John’! And he turned his head back, spat some water out his mouth and smiled! ‘I’m gonna be a cabin boy,’ he shouted! SIGNOR He stripped? Right there on the dock? What he do with Wroughton’s money and sailor things? YOUNG GRIMALDI He left ‘em on the dock. SIGNOR That stupid kid! He’s – he’s – He eight. He have future here, he had – he forget he have a family? YOUNG GRIMALDI He didn’t forget that, father.

SIGNOR picks up a book. He throws it at his son, who ducks it, barely.

SIGNOR Read from that, Joey. What’s it called.

YOUNG GRIMALDI Anthony Pasquin.

32 SIGNOR I know who write it! It The Children of Thespis. . He write all about the London celebrities. All the great actors. Read what he say about me. What he say about Signor Grimaldi, hah. YOUNG GRIMALDI I don’t know what – SIGNOR Page forty-seven!

YOUNG GRIMALDI quickly turns to the page. The older GRIMALDI stares out at the audience.

GRIMALDI ‘What monster is this, who alarms the beholders, With Folly and Infamy perch’d on his shoulders; Whom hallow’d Religion is lab’ring to save, Ere Sin and Disease goad the wretch to his grave. ‘Tis Grimaldi! Alas, Nature starts at the name; And trembles with horror, and reddens with shame!’ SIGNOR And nobody gonna forget it, neither.

Lights shift.

Scene 7 1832 GRIMALDI, MARY and CHARLES enter the space.

CHARLES Now, hold on. I’d like to go a bit deeper into that. GRIMALDI Into what? CHARLES Your father. He made you, wouldn’t you say that’s true? GRIMALDI True of all fathers, when you get down to it.

33 CHARLES I mean, you wouldn’t be a comic if not for him. Don’t you find that an odd parallel? GRIMALDI No. He was a tyrant, Charles. CHARLES Your own genius Your fame Crafted in the workshop of a man like your father A man you came to hate – GRIMALDI I didn’t come to hate him. I always hated him. And what are you getting at anyway? CHARLES Well, it just strikes me as interesting, is all. Your relationship with your own son isn’t so – GRIMALDI My son doesn’t hate me. And I am in no way like my father. I think we’re done for today. CHARLES But – I didn’t mean to - I’m just trying to make sense of it. For myself - So I can do the work that -

GRIMALDI Perhaps there’s nothing to make sense of. Nobody cares about a washed up old clown anyway. I’m yesterday’s news. In ten years, there’ll be no one to remember. CHARLES My circulation is 80,000 readers. A month. I can make them remember. GRIMALDI 80,000?

MARY enters. 34 MARY Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize there was company. CHARLES I was just leaving, actually. MARY Oh, you’re the one helping him with those old papers! CHARLES Well, I was. Seems he doesn’t really need my help. Isn’t that right? GRIMALDI They’re memoirs, not papers. Mary, would you fetch us some tea? CHARLES Oh, no, it’s gotten quite late. It was very nice to meet you. Anyway, I was really just organizing them into some sort of order. I think he’ll be all right, now. It was really just a chance for me to hear some wonderful old stories. Your husband’s got the story all figured out now, don’t you, Joey? MARY Well, you’ll let me know if there’s anything terrible said about me in there, won’t you? CHARLES I can’t imagine that would be possible. MARY Just make sure he cuts out anything embarrassing, all right? I’m counting on you, Charles.

She goes.

GRIMALDI Well, come on then. CHARLES What? GRIMALDI Sit down already. CHARLES

35 Am I allowed to do my job? Am I allowed to ask questions? GRIMALDI Yes, yes, fine, you can do what you want. Whatever you need. CHARLES Thank you. You know, you’d never know you were married from these notes. GRIMALDI Well. I am. CHARLES I just mean that perhaps – GRIMALDI Nobody cares about her and she doesn’t belong in this book. CHARLES Best of luck, Mister Grimaldi.

He gets up to go again.

GRIMALDI I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what people want to read. I didn’t think anyone would care about that stuff. CHARLES I’m sure you’ll figure it out. GRIMALDI I’m sorry. I’m not used to so much Talking. You don’t talk in pantomime.

CHARLES looks at him sternly.

CHARLES I have made a list here of questions that go unanswered in your sketches. They must be addressed if I’m to continue. He hands him a paper. GRIMALDI I guess I have left some details out, haven’t I? CHARLES 36 I’d say so. GRIMALDI I was born in 1778. Holborn. A slum called Clare Market. A shambles, really. Elizabethan relics that survived the Fire. CHARLES Your earliest memory. GRIMALDI Really? CHARLES Really. GRIMALDI I was three. My father had me playing a monkey. I was performing before I could even remember doing it. He’d lead me around by a chain attached to his waist And with this chain swing me round and round With utmost velocity. One evening… The chain broke. I was flung into the arms of an old gentleman. My father collected me. They applauded. We bowed. My earliest memory. 1782. I was three.

Lights shift.

Scene 8 1832 London

A knock on the door. JS in his dressing room. GRIMALDI JS? Hello? Are you in there?

No answer.

37 It’s your father. If you’re in there. And listening. Actually, I suppose if you’re in there and listening You know it’s me by the sound of my voice and are ignoring me. Are you ignoring me? I watched tonight, you know. You really were quite… Adequate. Really. I mean, yes, there are a few things I’d have done differently But you’re quite talented And I wouldn’t just say that to you.

He turns the door knob. The door swings slowly open. Oh, look at that, the door’s unlocked.

JS Adequate? GRIMALDI It’s a compliment. You really should get locks on your door. JS I did tell you not to come backstage.

GRIMALDI Can’t really avoid it in this business, now can I? JS I mean my backstage. GRIMALDI You left so quickly. We just wanted to make sure That there weren’t any lingering - JS Oh come in and sit down already. We’re not going to talk with you standing and leering at the door all night.

GRIMALDI comes in.

GRIMALDI Thank you. 38 JS Yes, fine. As you can see, I’m doing perfectly Adequate. No more “brain fever” or whatever that idiot said. GRIMALDI Are you sure? JS Yes. GRIMALDI Because I’m told brain fever is a rather tricky ailment… JS No brain fever. And no mercury in my diet. GRIMALDI Well, you didn’t know you’d drunk it down last time either… JS Yes, thank you, I’m aware. GRIMALDI You know Tom Ellar? He got fed mercury too. Now his face is blue. JS Blue? GRIMALDI Blue. As in the color? The ocean? The sky? That’s his face. Permanent. JS Fascinating.

GRIMALDI Huh. JS What? GRIMALDI Maybe it’s just the light but… Hm. 39 looking closely, I have to say there is a sort of undeniable blue quality to your complexion. JS Funny. GRIMALDI Looking at your face it’s almost as though I’m standing on the cliffs of Dover, looking out at the tranquil sea… JS That’s enough. GRIMALDI All right, perhaps tranquil is not the correct word. JS For god’s sake, shut up. GRIMALDI Actually, the surf looks a bit rough today… Some chop… JS Don’t you have a show tonight? “Harlequin and the Ogress” or whatever it is. GRIMALDI It really is remarkable. You’ve come so far as a performer. I got a bit choked up watching you tonight, Thinking how the talent in this family has been passed down generation to generation. JS It chokes me up too. But then I usually swallow the bile back down.

GRIMALDI Could be the Mercury. When was the last time you – JS Father.

40 GRIMALDI Right, anyway. It took me back to when I was starting out and - JS I’m twenty-five. GRIMALDI Yes? JS I’m not “starting out.” I’ve been performing since I was twelve. GRIMALDI Well, yes, of course, I know that. I just meant – I mean, you’re finally coming into your own and -- JS Coming into my own? So what have I been doing all this time then? GRIMALDI You’re awfully touchy tonight. JS I’ve not shared your stage in years! I’ve been on my own! Although you’d never know it, With you bloody shadow never ceasing to upstage me! GRIMALDI I suppose you must find it rather rude of me to still be kicking around and making a living! At least my father had the good graces to die when I was ten. JS You see I’m all right, yes? You can go home and tell mum I’m fine. Have a nice night.

GRIMALDI Wait – Please. Just. Give me a moment more of your time. JS No. Go away. 41 GRIMALDI I’m. I’m dying.

Silence. I said I’m – JS I heard you. What makes you so sure. GRIMALDI I know it. JS Is there an actual prognosis? Or just a vague feeling. GRIMALDI My body is turning against me, it – it seizes up, my legs, my bowels, my lungs, my – they’re rebelling. JS Perhaps it’s brain fever. Did you drink mercury? GRIMALDI I’m not exaggerating. JS You just signed a three-year contract. GRIMALDI Yes…well. I didn’t know how bad it would get, did I? I struggle through every performance. Sometimes I barely make it through. I fall into the arms of the attendants in the wings Exhausted. They put me down on a table and rub the horrific knots that have gathered in my muscles. JS Nightly back massages? Doesn’t sound so bad, really.

42 GRIMALDI Two nights ago I collapsed. My body revolted. I was seized with agony and and I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t continue. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The pain was awful, yes, but the realization that I might have to stop That I might have to give up. I felt as though I were being buried alive. And I had a dream, JS! I dreamt something was growing on my back No, that’s not right Not growing Feeding. A creature A goblin or something worse Attached to my back with razor claws Always there Always jabbering in my ears. And I’d turn to look but it would duck out of sight And I’d go to a mirror to look behind my shoulder To see the thing slavering and crawling Biting into my flesh Hurting me and – JS It sounds like guilt. GRIMALDI Guilt? What do I have to feel guilty about? JS Is there something you want to tell me That you haven’t? GRIMALDI I tell you I’m dying and you say it’s just –

JS It’s been going on ten years. You cancel an entire Dublin tour because of What was it? GRIMALDI Arthritis. JS “Premature old age.” 43 Isn’t that what they said then? You made me go on in your place. First time on stage without you. Did you watch me in secret that night as well?

Lights shift.

Scene 9 1832

The dilapidated old theatre. DICKENS and GRIMALDI sit at a small card table.

DICKENS Well, did you? GRIMALDI He wasn’t meant to be a clown. JS should have been Hamlet. Orsino. Romeo. He wasn’t harlequin. He wasn’t me. But he felt the pressure to be funny, To be a clown to be what he wasn’t and I felt it too. I may have been too hard on him Pushing him too hard in his youth and I think I started to become the monster to him that my father had been to me. DICKENS Were you ever violent towards him? GRIMALDI Good heavens, no. DICKENS Well, then I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself. GRIMALDI Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps JS would have been better off to run away To jump in the water and swim for the closest ship Like his uncle did when we were children.

CHARLES Yes, I’d like to know more about that. GRIMALDI 44 What’s to know? CHARLES How long have we been working together? Three months? There’s always more to know. GRIMALDI Sometimes there isn’t. CHARLES Well, you saw him again. GRIMALDI How do you know that? That’s not in any of my notes. How do you know – CHARLES Your wife told me. GRIMALDI There’s nothing to say about that. CHARLES I thought perhaps Well, I don’t know the whole story. GRIMALDI No you don’t. Neither does she. She wasn’t there. She has no right. CHARLES She remembers it. She remembers that night. She remembers how you were. She I think I just wonder if it might If it might shed some light on… GRIMALDI On what? CHARLES Well, so many of your stories seem to revolve around people going away from you, don’t they? GRIMALDI I don’t know, do they? 45 I hadn’t thought about it. Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? That’s all life is. People come in and they go out. It’s only in stories that they come back around at the end, Surprising their friends and family with good fortune. CHARLES I sometimes think that maybe In telling stories There’s a chance of maybe visiting a room in your mind You hadn’t been up to visit in a long time. And that can’t be so bad? Can it?

Pause.

GRIMALDI It was years after John had left. I was playing in “A Bold Stroke for a Wife” at Drury Lane when a visitor arrived at my dressing room.

Lights shift.

Scene 10 1804 London

A handsome young man enters, dressed exotically. He has a top hat and a cane.

JOHN Joey! Hey, Joey!

GRIMALDI Can I help you? JOHN You were wonderful tonight, Joey! GRIMALDI Uh, Thank you, that’s very…

JOHN smiles at him knowingly. I’m sorry, do I know you? JOHN 46 Yes, I think you could say that!

He laughs.

GRIMALDI I don’t appreciate mockery, sir. And I don’t appreciate familiarity from strangers. JOHN Oh, Joey – so touchy. Really now, you’d think a man of such joviality on stage would have a sense of humor when he came off! GRIMALDI If you won’t tell me who you are or what you want, I must ask you to leave, sir. Good night. JOHN Hold on. Perhaps this will help!

The man opens up his shirt to reveal a grisly scar on his chest.

Don’t you know me now?

Pause.

GRIMALDI It can’t be… It simply isn’t…

JOHN laughs boisterously. They immediately embrace each other.

GRIMALDI John! Good God! It is you! John! It’s been – JOHN Sixteen years! GRIMALDI Sixteen years! Now, how the hell was I supposed to recognize you after sixteen years? 47 JOHN Oh, I don’t know. I’m only your brother! GRIMALDI You were eight! You’re all grown up! Why, you must be -- JOHN Twenty-Four! GRIMALDI Yes, I can do simple arithmetic, John, thank you. We thought – Honestly, John, I thought you were dead. We all did. And here you are! JOHN Here I am! GRIMALDI Look at you! You’re tan! Your dress. And that cane! JOHN Like it? GRIMALDI It’s absurd!

JOHN laughs again. He gives it a twirl.

I guess you’ve done pretty well for yourself!

JOHN You don’t know the half of it. I’m carrying six hundred pounds in cash, Joey! GRIMALDI Well, don’t go screaming that too loud around here. You never know who’s listening. God, Maybe I should have gone to sea, as well. You know, Richard’s here tonight too, right here at Drury Lane. JOHN

48 Wroughton? You’re joking! GRIMALDI No! He had a performance tonight too! JOHN That’s – oh, it would be so good to see him.

GRIMALDI For him as well. You could pay him back the money he gave you for that outfit you left on the dock! JOHN With interest! But, how’s mum? Is she close? Can we see her? She’s not… GRIMALDI No, no, she’s doing just fine. She’s right in the neighborhood. You simply must see her. And I know JS is going to want to meet you. JOHN JS? GRIMALDI My son! JOHN You have a son! Oh good gracious… I’m an uncle?

GRIMALDI Yes, that’s how it works. JOHN And his mother? Can I meet her? GRIMALDI I’m afraid… I’m afraid There’s quite a lot to catch up on.

49 JOHN You’re not putting him through… all this, are you? GRIMALDI He’s very talented. JOHN Oh dear. Be careful. GRIMALDI If he runs off to sea, I’ll know I’ve done something wrong. JOHN And Dad. Is he… GRIMALDI Still dead, yes. But you know that – you got at least some of our letters, didn’t you? JOHN Well, wouldn’t be the first time he’d surprised us all by jumping alive again. GRIMALDI He’s fifteen years in the ground – I think it’s safe to say he isn’t coming back. Look, I’m almost done here – I’ve got the closer and encore and then we can get out of here and pay Mum a visit, what do you say to that? JOHN That sounds marvelous. I can’t wait to see her.

GRIMALDI She’s not going to believe it. God, I don’t believe it! Sixteen years! JOHN I’ll find Richard while I wait for you. GRIMALDI Yes, do. He’s in the green room. He’s not going to believe it either.

50 It’s – God, it’s so good to see you. My brother is back.

JOHN Your brother is back.

They embrace.

GRIMALDI All right, be good. Twenty minutes, I’ll come find you.

JOHN goes. GRIMALDI is alone.

But when I returned, Charles, John had already gone. He’d seen Richard, and spent some time with a few comedians he’d known in his childhood but they said he’d gone out for some air not a minute before I’d come back to the Green Room. One of them said they’d seen him walking about the stage in a dream like state… Which of course to me, meant he’d been remembering. Remembering a childhood on just that very stage.

Pause.

I don’t think they were very happy memories. I went outside to look for him on Russell Street but there was no sign of him. Then I remembered – perhaps he’d popped in on our old friend Bowley, who still lived nearby! Luck! He had! He nearly sent Bowley into cardiac arrest, but he’d been there! And he’d just left, heading towards Great Wild Street! Great Wild’s where we lived before John left home! I went there next… But no luck! I couldn’t find him. Perhaps he’d returned to the theater? No – he wasn’t there either. Where was my brother? Where had he gone? 51 I was worried out of my mind! It was after midnight and I started knocking on doors, knocking on ever door I saw, dropping in on neighbors, asking if they’d seen my brother. They thought I’d gone mad. I went to our mother’s house. Maybe he’d discovered where she lived. He hadn’t. I told her what had happened. She looked at me like I’d betrayed her And then her eyes rolled up she fainted right on the spot. We didn’t find him that night. Or the next. Or later that week. A month went by with no news. We scoured newspapers and ship lists for information on passengers and crew. The police investigation began. The police captain proposed a theory that he’d been lured into some infamous crime den and murdered. Somewhere in St. Giles, probably, the slum behind the theatres some called The Holy Land. If that’s indeed the truth, We never did find a body. And whatever the case, I never saw my brother again. I console myself in knowing that Bowley and those friends in the Green Room saw him too. For if they hadn’t, I might have resigned myself to believing I’d become a slave to the very insanity and visions that plagued my father. And I console myself with the fact that my brother never did forget us, even after all those years.

Silence. MARY enters. MARY Are you going out again, Joey? GRIMALDI Yes. The Admiralty has a theory And I want to hear them out.

52 MARY A theory! You mean they know something? Oh, Joey! GRIMALDI Don’t get excited. They don’t know anything. They said he might have been press-ganged. But there’s no way of knowing. He’s likely under a false name. MARY I’m sorry, Joey. GRIMALDI You probably think I just imagined the whole thing. MARY I don’t. I believe you. Of course I believe you. JS, he’s heartbroken… GRIMALDI What’s he care, he never met him. MARY He’s heartbroken for you! And that he didn’t get to meet his uncle The man he’s named for. Please talk to him, Joey. Our son is – GRIMALDI Our son? Ours? He’s not ours. He’s mine. Not yours. Mine. You hear me?

He’s grabbed her.

MARY Joey. Please. GRIMALDI You think I’m crazy too, don’t you? 53 Well, why not? You’ve gotten your talons into everything else Of course you’d get into my head too, you’d –

She slaps him.

MARY Stop.

They look at each other.

I’m sorry. GRIMALDI Oh god, please don’t apologize. MARY No. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not I’m sorry I’m not Her. GRIMALDI What are you talking about. MARY I know you wish I were. I know. When we’re happy When you smile at me I can tell I can tell that you’re pretending I’m her. GRIMALDI That isn’t true. MARY He knows. Your son knows There’s something strange about us. GRIMALDI His father’s a clown. MARY He knows.

She goes. He watches. He turns. GRIMALDI looks out at the audience.

But we’re getting a bit dreary here aren’t we? 54 What do you say, Charles? Let’s have a song, eh wot? Been thinking on this song a lot lately, what with my health being what it is. You all remember this one. An oldie but a goodie by the name of “Tippitiwichit: or Pantomimical Paroxysms.” Goes a little something like this. Hit it. THIS VERY MORNING HANDY, MY MALADY WAS SUCH, I IN MY TEA TOOK BRANDY AND TOOK A DROP TOO MUCH. (hiccups) TOL DE ROL, etc. NOW I’M QUITE DROWSY GROWING, FOR THIS VERY MORN, I ROSE WHILE COCK WAS CROWING, EXCUSE ME IF I YAWN (yawns) TOL DE ROL, etc. BUT STOP, I MUSTN’T MAG HARD, MY HEAD ACHES – IF YOU PLEASE, ONE PINCH OF IRISH BLACKGUARD I’LL TAKE TO GIVE ME EASE. (sneezes) TOL DE ROL, etc. I’M NOT IN CUE FOR FROLIC, CAN’T UP MY SPIRITS KEEP, OVE’S A WINDY COLIC, ‘TIS THAT MAKES ME WEEP (cries) TOL DE ROL, etc. I’M NOT IN MOOD FOR CRYING CARE’S A SILLY CALF IF TO GET FAT YOU’RE TRYING, THE ONLY WAY’S TO LAUGH. (laughs) TOL DE ROL, etc.

Lights shift.

Scene 11 1832 London

Enter KEMBLE. A comedian, though much more elegant looking than GRIMALDI.

55

KEMBLE I don’t care what they say Your voice isn’t half bad, Joey! I always used to think an actor did Pantomime Because he either couldn’t speak the English Or his voice came out sounding like he’d been kicked in the tea-bag. You wanted to meet? GRIMALDI ‘Wanted’ is perhaps overstating it. KEMBLE Well, what is it, then? GRIMALDI I’ll get right to it. Stay away from my son. KEMBLE No beating around the bush for you, eh? Not much for talking it out, huh? GRIMALDI No. KEMBLE He’s a grown lad, Joey. I can’t control what he does. If he thinks he can learn from me, Who am I to turn him away? You know, some time around a performer of my stature is certain to teach the boy a thing or two. Might catapult the boy to greatness even. GRIMALDI Or to Bedlam. JS has gotten himself in enough trouble this year.

56 KEMBLE Yes, that was unfortunate, wasn’t it? GRIMALDI Unfortunate?! He almost died and your insatiable appetite for self destruction is -

GRIMALDI starts coughing.

Excuse me. KEMBLE Perhaps less time spent worrying about JS’s health and more time worrying about your own might be in order, eh, old man?

GRIMALDI continues to cough.

GRIMALDI I don’t want him carousing with some over the hill – KEMBLE Now, now. Let’s not bandy insults about. Your skin’s not thick enough, if memory serves. Anyway, don’t you think you ought to let the boy spread his wings a bit? Your shadow’s awful dark, Joey. In my experience, a great man like yourself Or like my father Can build wings of wax for their children Teach them to fly, Indeed, can lift them so high they scrape the heavens And brush up against the sun. But we have to be careful The heat will melt the wax, as the story goes. GRIMALDI I’d like to know what you’d be without your father. What would you be doing If your father didn’t run half the theatres in London? KEMBLE And what of you, eh? What would you be without the Signor? GRIMALDI A happier man.

57 KEMBLE Ah, so then you do understand your son, after all. Now, if you’ll excuse me… GRIMALDI You know where I can get Mercury at this hour. KEMBLE Mercury? GRIMALDI That’s right. KEMBLE Now why on earth would you want such a thing? Building a thermometer, Joey? You feeling under the weather again? I’d heard a nasty rumor That lately you’ve had trouble making it through a performance Without seizing up and collapsing. Is that true? GRIMALDI Do you know or don’t you? KEMBLE What would a Shakespearean actor need with Mercury? The only temperature I take is that of my audience.

GRIMALDI grabs KEMBLE and throws him on the table.

GRIMALDI Tell me! KEMBLE What, will you fight me? I warn you, my fists will give you a rougher time than any bloated-up zucchini-fingered fist. I’ll give any pugilist vegetable-monster-homunculus A run for his money, or whatever that absurd act of yours is. GRIMALDI JS came to us roiling with brain fever. The effect of mercury poisoning. Was he with you that night? KEMBLE

58 I have no idea. When was this? GRIMALDI Can’t you remember? KEMBLE if JS wants to have a lark, let him have a lark, I say! GRIMALDI A lark?! He nearly died! Have you even looked at him lately? He’s emaciated – it’s like he hasn’t eaten in months. And he’s pale and his hair is lank and thinning. He looks twice his twenty-five years.

JS enters.

JS Lots of that premature aging business going around, huh. GRIMALDI JS!

GRIMALDI lets KEMBLE up.

KEMBLE Well look at that. The prodigal son has arrived. Mystery solved. JS You keep turning up, father. And I keep telling you to leave me alone. GRIMALDI You turned up first. And you spent two months in your childhood bed. Why’d you come home If being left alone’s what you want? JS Wish I knew.

Silence. KEMBLE I put him there. GRIMALDI 59 I bloody knew it. What the hell is the matter with you, Feeding a boy - JS He didn’t feed me anything. GRIMALDI This man is a parasite, JS. He’s not your friend. He’s attempting to destroy you and everything we’ve built. KEMBLE I resent that, Joey. I’m as professional as they come.

He belches.

GRIMALDI You?! You missed a cue by twenty minutes and claimed it was because you “always take a shag before the play begins.” KEMBLE What? I do! GRIMALDI And let’s not even begin to discuss the legion of whores lining up to service you backstage between acts, or the rivers of booze you have delivered to your green room. KEMBLE Everyone has a warmup routine. JS He brought me home. He didn’t feed me anything. He saved me. Kemble. Can you give us a moment? KEMBLE Suit yourself. You know, for a family of clowns, you Grimaldis certainly are a dour and moody lot.

He goes. GRIMALDI and JS look at each other.

GRIMALDI

60 We’ll get to the bottom of this. JS Of what? GRIMALDI Of who poisoned you! If it wasn’t Kemble Who the hell was it? JS It was me, you idiot.

Silence. GRIMALDI You don’t have to do this. If you’re unhappy, Do something else with your life. JS Like what? What am I supposed to do now? GRIMALDI I tried to do right by you. I thought I was doing that. Giving you the means to make a living for yourself. I thought it’s what you wanted. I asked you if it was. JS When I was three. GRIMALDI More choice than my father gave me. JS Do you remember that time when you got sick? When I was eleven? When I went on by myself. That first time alone. GRIMALDI Of course.

JS You weren’t really ill, were you. GRIMALDI No. JS You told me you needed me.

61 Told me our family’s fate rested on my shoulders. Why did you do that? GRIMALDI I wanted to see you fly. JS I could have fallen. GRIMALDI Well, that is the risk. JS Remember those old tours, Dad? You’d leave me with the ladies in the costume shops and Where would you go? Exploring the English countryside? The seaside towns? Is that where you went? GRIMALDI Not much point in touring if you don’t get out and see the country, is there? JS Sight-seeing. Yes. Did your wife know what you were up to? GRIMALDI You mean your mother. JS I mean your wife. GRIMALDI I wasn’t up to anything. I never kept anything from – What are you getting at? JS When did you know you’d be a father? Do you remember?

GRIMALDI Bit warm in here, isn’t it?

GRIMALDI starts to take his jacket off.

JS Look at me. GRIMALDI 62 What? JS Look at me. What do you see? GRIMALDI I see my son. Now, help me get this sleeve off… JS You see you. That’s what you see. When I look in the mirror, I see you too. I never had a chance to see me. But that doesn’t matter. What I wanted to see is irrelevant. It’s what you wanted that mattered. You don’t love anyone but yourself. GRIMALDI I love you. JS But I’m just a reflection of you. Take a look in a mirror. You built me to be a new you. What, did you want to live forever? GRIMALDI Not much hope in that.

He gets the jacket off and throws it to the ground.

It’s under my shirt… How did it get in there? JS I was your little, miniature recreation. Your little doppelgänger. If you loved Mum at all Perhaps it was for giving you that. GRIMALDI I loved your mother! JS Loved? Well, that’s telling. GRIMALDI 63 You have no idea what you’re talking about. JS You’re right, I’m confused. Are we talking about my mother Or the woman you’re married to now The woman you’ve brow-beaten and humiliated and Who you’ve passed off as my mother all these years? GRIMALDI Oh god, get it off. JS Course, for all I know You have miniature versions of yourself from Hackney to Northhampton.

GRIMALDI struggles to get the shirt off. He’s falling to the ground, Knocking things over Trying to peel it off with the floor.

Father. Look at me. I look just like you!

JS pulls GRIMALDI up off the floor. He kisses him on the mouth. Then he tears GRIMALDI’s shirt open. GRIMALDI stumbles backwards.

GRIMALDI There’s something on my back. Please tell me what it is. Get it off of me. I can feel it biting me. Feel it’s tiny razor claws. Please.

JS Turn around And let me see.

GRIMALDI looks at JS with only a little bit of trust. Starts to turn.

That’s right. Nice and slow.

64 GRIMALDI turns slowly around. There’s a horrifying gremlin parasite biting into his back. It turns its head to the audience. Black out.

Scene 12 1832

Lights in a different space. MARY sits at a table. GRIMALDI putters around the room.

MARY You shot yourself in the foot when you met me. That’s what we used to say, remember? That was the joke we’d tell. GRIMALDI If memory serves, I shot myself in the foot and then I met you. MARY We were joking. Humor. Remember that? GRIMALDI Vaguely. MARY It still makes me laugh.

JOE smiles weakly. You, in that outfit. What were you?

Silence. GRIMALDI Rufo the Robber. The Great Devil was the name of the show. Nineteen costume changes. MARY Yes, yes! Rufo the Robber! Terrorizing all those poor travelers! Really, the roles you used to take. GRIMALDI 65 You take what you’re offered. MARY And how did it happen?

He bangs his fist on the table.

GRIMALDI You know all this, Mary. How many times have we replayed the same story? Thirty-one years! You don’t need me to tell it. MARY Yes, but I like to hear the old stories. GRIMALDI Let’s just eat. My back is sore. I didn’t sleep well last night.

Silence.

MARY (quietly) You were meant to pull a gun from your boot. And fire a blank in the air. But you fired it too early. And it went off on your foot And it set fire to your stockings. But you still finished the scene. And your foot was so badly injured You couldn’t work for a month. GRIMALDI Feel better now?

Silence. A miserable, tedious month, laid up on my back. MARY And then I came. GRIMALDI My nurse. Bringing me back to health. MARY I like to think about those days. Happier times. They were, weren’t they?

66 GRIMALDI I suppose. MARY I thought we were happy. How is your arthritis? Do you want me to help?

He doesn’t answer. She cautiously begins to massage his shoulders.

I’d come to bathe your foot every day that month. Tie your bandages. Sometimes twice a day. GRIMALDI And how did I seem to you then? MARY Sad. But I remember the first time I saw you smile! It was a nice smile. I wanted to see it again. I’d say, smile Joe. But you wouldn’t. So I’d come up with stories for the people I saw on my way to you To see if I could make you laugh with those. And sometimes you would. And when you wouldn’t… I’d try to tickle your good foot. One time I said ‘You make us laugh at night, Joseph But you are Grim-All-Day.’

GRIMALDI That old line. MARY Were you ever in love with me? GRIMALDI What? MARY Oh, I know you loved me. Needed me, That I Filled a role in your life And that at times this may have looked like love. Better than quite a lot of people can expect, I suppose. 67 But were you ever in love with me? Even at the beginning? GRIMALDI Mary… MARY I asked Charles, you see. GRIMALDI And what did he say. MARY He said it didn’t even seem like you ever even loved yourself.

MARY goes. He watches. GRIMALDI looks to the audience again.

GRIMALDI When I was young I worked for a theater manager named Richard Hughes. He had a named Maria. She was constantly in and out of the theatre, running errands for her father and taking her place in the proprietor’s box to watch the performances at night. My performances. After the Signor’s death, my mother had come out of her shell. She’d become a kind of mother for the entire company. She’d spend the afternoons sewing and chatting in the ladies dressing rooms and sometimes I’d join her there – not to sew or chat, but because of Maria, who’d become a regular. I’d glance up over a teacup and look at her, and look away just as quickly when she caught me. I was performing in Morad at the time and she came to me and she said: I thought you were wonderful, Joey. My stuttering response did not qualify as English. I fell Deeply Sorrowfully Madly In love. But I had no idea if she felt the same way. And…she was the Manager’s daughter. She may as well have been an Arabian princess. The duel miseries of self-doubt and unrequited love were

68 working to ruin any success I’d built to that point. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t eat, I was a disaster on stage. I was dumbstruck and mortified in her presence. I ate nothing, drank little, slept less and moped around the workshop wishing to kill myself. The wardrobe mistress recognized what was happening immediately. Her husband had been a backstage romance, you see. She suggested I write Maria a letter. Oh, what a letter. It took me a whole day to fill a half sheet of paper. The letter was passed on to Maria by my mother’s friends But the show was starting and I had to go on. During the action, I saw her up in the Manager’s Box. She signaled to me! She smiled! She waved! I wasn’t alone! She felt the same way! I was so happy! That simple smile released me from all the agony I’d felt those weeks. And It also released me from any knowledge of where I was in the performance. I returned to my senses just as a table carrying sixteen men landed on me, nearly crushing me to death, suspended, until the rope had broke, by the teeth of the Sicilian strongman, the Amazing Concetto Coco! She visited me the next morning, my arm in a sling. I was only 17 but I asked her to marry me. She said no. Her father could have killed my career with a word so we kept our love a secret. Secret walks and clandestine secret meetings in the meadows behind the theatre and along the New River. We’d meet in the tea garden and in the balcony. We did this for three years before we finally married. We were so happy, so full of life. She was all I cared about. We were to have a child that year. 1800, it was. It was terrifically hot that summer. And It was not an easy pregnancy. One night, I was called home from rehearsal at Drury Lane with the news that Maria had gone into labor.

69 I raced up the stairs of my home and… Having a child – a child is a miracle. It truly is.

Silence.

Her brother was weeping over her body. She’d left a little poem she wished inscribed on her headstone and she asked her brother to look after me. Her last words, he said… Poor Joe. Poor Joe. Poor Joe.

He sits down. He picks up a blanket. He holds it like a baby.

I went back to work two days later. It was “Hamlet” by the way. I was twenty-one years old, not yet a star. They cast me as the Second Gravedigger.

Pause. KEMBLE comes out. He hands GRIMALDI a shovel and a satchel.

KEMBLE Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully seeks her own salvation?

GRIMALDI I tell thee she is. Therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.

CHARLES appears. He takes a seat.

CHARLES He doesn’t know. GRIMALDI He all but told me he did. CHARLES But he doesn’t know who she was. Not the way you do. Not the way you describe her. GRIMALDI 70 She was a dancer. Oh, it’s too late. What’s to tell? He’ll hate me for telling him now. CHARLES What’s to lose? He hates you anyway, Joseph.

JOEY looks sharply at him. Starts to laugh.

GRIMALDI What can be salvaged from the ruins, eh Charles? CHARLES Tell Mariah’s story Give her to your son And then let her go. GRIMALDI I don’t know where he is. Our last meeting It didn’t end well. CHARLES Ah, yes… The, ah, creature that leaped from your back.

GRIMALDI Metaphorically speaking… CHARLES Of course, yes, metaphors. You know, it might be worth clearing up what happened. GRIMALDI What do you mean? CHARLES Just that a metaphor shouldn’t block your meaning. GRIMALDI What, for my readers? CHARLES For yourself. GRIMALDI Well, I don’t intend the book to - CHARLES

71 I’m not talking about the book.

Pause. And then JS appears again. JS Course, for all I know You have miniature versions of yourself from Hackney to Northampton.

GRIMALDI just looks at him.

GRIMALDI No. Just you. And I wasn’t trying to make you into me. I wasn’t. Mostly when I’d look at you I wouldn’t see me at all. JS The critics thought that too. GRIMALDI No, I’d see… I’d see…

Silence.

Maybe you know. JS Why didn’t you just look away If you didn’t like what you saw. What, easier to just throw some greasepaint on me? Pretend I was something else entirely? GRIMALDI Professional liar. JS Both of us. Go home, all right? Get some sleep. You don’t look well. GRIMALDI Where will you go? JS Don’t worry so much. 72 GRIMALDI I can’t help it. JS Look I just need a day or two. They offered me Scaramouch. Did you hear? GRIMALDI That’s wonderful. JS Things will look up. I’ll be all right, father. I will.

JS goes. The lights shift. GRIMALDI turns to the audience. Lights shift.

Scene 13 1832 KEMBLE takes a seat at a pub. GRIMALDI sits down across from him.

KEMBLE He was troubled. GRIMALDI Troubled. KEMBLE Yes, that’s what he was. Such a funny thing. Performing Being a clown when you’re up there, and then being so gloomy when you’re off. GRIMALDI Gloomy, you say? KEMBLE You know. He had his moods. Well, who doesn’t, I suppose. At the end of the day. GRIMALDI Do you have moods? 73 KEMBLE Sure, I have moods. Everyone’s got moods. GRIMALDI He did it again. They said. Mercury. Raving. Ranting. Attacked a man right here. Right in this pub. Accused him of poisoning him. Self defense, they said. Does that sound like my son? KEMBLE He wanted death, is what it sounds like.

Raises his glass. To JS Grimaldi. The stage wasn’t big enough for him. A man out of his time. GRIMALDI What the hell does that mean? KEMBLE I think it’s pretty clear. GRIMALDI ‘A Man Out of His Time.’ What is that? KEMBLE This wasn’t his time. He was out of it. A stranger in a strange land. Like that Gulliver chap. Or that Zadig fellow. GRIMALDI What, like he was meant for Egypt or ancient Babylon? KEMBLE Or the future. He was a prophet, that’s what I think.

GRIMALDI Really. And just what did he prophecy?

74 In your opinion. KEMBLE Well, he saw the end coming. Knew enough to predict that. Got out before things got really bad. GRIMALDI The end? KEMBLE That’s right. The end. End of the era. New order on the way. Obvious to the prophets. Goodbye to the Regency. Goodbye William. Long live Queen Victoria. La-dee-da. Things are going to change around you, Just you watch. They already are. He saw that, your son did. They’re already planning to shutter up the carnival at Batholomew Fair, You’ve heard that, I’m sure. GRIMALDI I hadn’t. KEMBLE Well, they are. Repression, that’s what it is. How are the freaks supposed to make a living now, I’d like to know? What’s a midget juggler to do? or a pig-faced lady for that matter? What I’m really going to miss are the dancing dogs, I really, really am. And for what? They lose their livelihood for what? All in the name of decorum. Decency? Who the hell do they want us to be? GRIMALDI Victorians, I believe. KEMBLE How’s an artist supposed to eat

75 When they’ve taken your livelihood away? Where do you go, when the theatres are closed? JS was smart. GRIMALDI You almost sound like you’re planning to kill yourself as well. KEMBLE Nah. Death wouldn’t take. Not on me. My constitution’s too strong. I’ll do the next best thing. I’ll go to America. GRIMALDI No thank you.

KEMBLE What? I hear it’s nice. We could go to New York, you and me. GRIMALDI I’m not going to New York. KEMBLE Lot of theatres there. Lots of work. Lots of opportunity. GRIMALDI Lawless criminals. Armed to the teeth, all of them. KEMBLE Now, now. GRIMALDI A nation of drunken, rabble-rousing fools. Actually, maybe you’d fit in just fine. KEMBLE Yes, I think so. GRIMALDI You heard what happened to Parsloe and his company, didn’t you? They had the same idea as you. Went to America Went to New York. Wanted to play the Bowery, 76 but Parsloe fell and hurt his spine as they pulled into the bloody harbor. They played two whole shows, he limped around in agony, And then had a complete mental breakdown onstage And cancelled the rest of the tour. KEMBLE Yes, but he got great write-ups. GRIMALDI They found him dead the same morning the reviews came out so it didn’t do him a whole lot of good, now did it? KEMBLE Won’t be quick to forget him, that’s for sure. Death’s no obstacle. It’s an opportunity. GRIMALDI In six months nobody’ll remember Parsloe. KEMBLE Fine. Maybe not Parsloe But if it were me? Or you? They’d remember us. Wouldn’t they? GRIMALDI Who can say. KEMBLE What about John Gay? GRIMALDI What about him? KEMBLE He’s a harlequin like you. GRIMALDI He’s not like me. KEMBLE All right, he’s not in the same league as you. Nobody would deny that. Listen to this though… When they cancelled the rest of that tour, Parsloe’s men mostly came back here But not John Gay! 77 He wanted to explore America Find what the place was really about. Went off to a couple of those cities they have with the harbors and teabags or whatever that was all about – starts with a B – one of those B cities. Bostimore. Balston. Something. Anyway, eventually he wanders off West. They’ve got a West in America like you wouldn’t believe. It’s massive. So he goes off into the west. and he finds himself in an Indian camp. I’m talking real Indians, now. Some of them got hair like you in your costume. The Mo-Hawk? Anyway, Gay runs into a whole war party And they get one look at him And mind you, he is decked out in his full harlequin regalia. Only clothing he’s got left at this point, After all that traveling. And they see him, And they think he’s some kind of Medicine Man. GRIMALDI Oh, rubbish. KEMBLE That’s what he said when he got back. Anyway, he carried on with that Tribe for a whole year. Really changed his outlook on life. GRIMALDI Why’d he come back if life was so good with the Tribe? KEMBLE Said he couldn’t take the winters. GRIMALDI Huh. KEMBLE Maybe you should go. GRIMALDI I don’t think so. KEMBLE Tell ‘em how you’re the basis for that book. GRIMALDI 78 What book? Charles has my notes, but there’s no book yet.

KEMBLE Not your bloody memoir! The other one! They ripped off your act for that book. What was it? The one Lord Byron loved? The cucumber fellow… With the melon face? The Harlequin Asmodeus! That’s it! The vegetable Homunculus comes to shambling life, vanquishing his creator!

The Vegetable Homunculus enters the space, unbeknownst to KEMBLE.

That Byron fellow took all of his friends. That other poet, Shelley and his wife. He saw it with his wife. Mariah?

GRIMALDI stands up. He walks over to the Vegetable Man. He stares it down.

KEMBLE No. Mary, that’s what it was. And this Mary Shelley’s wife She goes and steals your bloody plot for her novel! God, that book’s been out ten years. Oh, we’re old, Joey. Remember what they called you? ‘Joe Frankenstein!’ ‘Joe Frankenstein!’ Good God, that’s rich.

GRIMALDI stares into the face of the Vegetable Man.

GRIMALDI “Or like Joe Frankestein compile The vegetable man complete! A proper Covent Garden feat.” KEMBLE 79 Eh, I didn’t read it. GRIMALDI Neither did I.

Suddenly, GRIMALDI decks the vegetable man.

A boxing bell rings out!

GRIMALDI hits the monster. Sometimes the monster hits him. Pieces of vegetable and fruit go flying. V8 juice is everywhere. It’s a vegetable juice blood bath. Crushed melon and squash and pumpkin paint the space with gore. Eventually the Monster goes down. GRIMALDI tackles it and continues to hit until it is nothing but a spattered mess. He is covered in juice and the flesh of vegetables.

He starts to move the broken pieces of pumpkin away from where the head would be. First with curiosity. Then with dread. Then the building horror of recognition.

His son is beneath the broken bits of pumpkin.

GRIMALDI No. No. No. No. No. No.

He embraces the fallen monster, crying into it’s corpse. He rocks his son’s body. COLUMBINE comes out. Suddenly, we’re in a Pantomime performance.

COLUMBINE Harlequino! GRIMALDI Oh, Mariah! My Columbino! Let love at last yield to our prayers! COLUMBINE First, let us eat! You have prepared a lovely meal, my heart! 80 GRIMALDI Gaze, my love, upon the heavenly nectar I have brought! COLUMBINE Ah! Love will allow us to savor the food and drink! GRIMALDI My ravenous Columbina! My Mariah!

COLUMBINE And you, my lovely Harlequin! My Joey.

They begin to eat the fruit and vegetables making up their son’s body.

Scene 15 1832

MARY and CHARLES sit in another space.

MARY Charles? It wasn’t supposed to end this way. Stories shouldn’t end this way. CHARLES Some do. MARY You know, about a month after JS died… We said, “that’s it, we’re done.” We’re tired of pain. We’re tired of hurting. The aches of the body and the heart They’re too much to bear. Life is bleak. Life is burdensome. So we made a promise to each other. A pact. We would drink poison together. So that’s what we did. We got what we believed to be a lethal dose, We drank it. Tasted like you’d expect poison to taste. I gagged. I made him hold my throat while I swallowed. We got into bed. And we laid together. 81 We said goodbye. And we waited for the end. And waited. And waited.

Pause.

Joey? Joey – are you dead?

Silence. GRIMALDI appears.

GRIMALDI No, Mary.

Silence.

I guess you aren’t either. MARY No, dear. GRIMALDI Ah.

MARY Well, we got up out of bed, The poison gave us bad gas and that’s about it, really. I went downstairs and made a warm meal. And we sat down together for dinner.

Silence. She looks at her husband. With affection. That was stupid, wasn’t it, Joey? GRIMALDI Yes. MARY Let’s not do that again. GRIMALDI All right.

Silence.

What do you suggest we do instead, Mary? 82

MARY I don’t know, Joey. Maybe, let’s endure a bit longer. What do you think? GRIMALDI All right, Mary.

She looks at CHARLES.

MARY Charles? CHARLES Yes, Mary. MARY Leave this part out.

GRIMALDI comes downstage. Finds the notes to his book. Starts to look at a few of the pages. It’s torturous. But he makes himself do it. End of Play

83