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Michel Fustier

ROMEO AND JULIET'S NURSE


Shakespeare's life is little known, the more so since the identity of the person who wrote Shakespeare's comedies is rather uncertain. Refusing to take sides in the argument, we decided not to write what would have been a made-up episode of the playwright’s life, but to imagine a discussion between the playwright and some of his characters displeased with the lot he had assigned to them

CHARACTERS
Shakespeare.
The Nurse in the play Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet.
(the place of the play is indeterminate)


-1-
NURSE - (alone) Nay, I can't suffer this situation any longer! …Eh! You who are not blind, look at me: at my age some still have fresh cheeks and a rosy complexion. But me, God forgive me, I am wrinkled all over and yellow from care… So I have made up my mind: I'll go and meet him and we'll make it clear… But here he comes.
SHAKESPEARE - (arriving) Who is the noble lady who is waiting for me here? …Though, when seen close up, she doesn't really look so noble… Madam, did we ever meet?
NURSE - I beg your pardon… We know each other very well, don't you remember? You have begotten me, Mr. Shakespeare, though I'm not absolutely sure if that is the right word. As a matter of fact you introduced me as a living and complete character into one of your comedies. Could you have forgotten it?
SHAKESPEARE – It reminds me of something… In which comedy?
NURSE - Romeo and Juliet.
SHAKESPEARE - I remember now… so, this noble lady, though not looking such, would be…
NURSE - The nurse.
SHAKESPEARE - Of course, the nurse. Well my dear, you were rather a blabbermouth in bygone days.
NURSE - And still am, God forgive me… And what I have to say, you'll hear it, whether it pleases you or not.
SHAKESPEARE - If you don't bully me, I will listen to you.
NURSE - Very well… But don't complain afterwards! Now… we, your players, have been performing our play - I mean mine as well as yours - for over four hundred years now on all the stages of the world and I can tell very plainly that, now that I am growing older, I can't bear any longer the lot you prepared for these two poor young people. In the beginning, when I didn't know what you were aiming at, I could gallantly play the beginning of the play, but now that I have understood that you make these poor lambs die so cruelly…
SHAKESPEARE - Please, nurse, remind me of the facts… They are lovers, I gather… So, they die…?
NURSE - Yes. They love each other but their families can't put up with… I mean the Montagues and Capulets. So in the end, to be able to run away together, they arrange to meet in a tomb – how strange, by the way! - and the boy, believing that the girl is dead, poisons himself, and the girl, who wasn't dead but only asleep, stabs herself when she sees the boy is dead.
SHAKESPEARE - Yes, I remember. How stupid!
NURSE - That's just the word. It's awfully sad and this is the reason why sorrow has withered my cheeks! But the poor young lovers are still more to be pitied and I have been so daring as to bring them to you. Come in, my dears. (they arrive) This is Romeo and that is Juliet.

-2-
ROMEO - Mr. Shakespeare, or whoever you are… If you are really the playwright…
SHAKESPEARE - Yes, that is what they say…
JULIET - Mr. Shakespeare, we have something to beg of your kindness of heart.
SHAKESPEARE - Really… If I can still be of any use… What is it you want?
JULIET - We are sick and tired of dying every night.
ROMEO - We want to live. We do love each other, don't you know, and you must accept the consequences of our love. We want to live and be married.
JULIET - Be married and have lots of children… ten at least.
SHAKESPEARE - My poor friends, do you believe that life cares about all our whims. It rather likes to oppose them.
JULIET - Who is speaking of life? Remember: we are not in real life but in a comedy whose writer can lead as he wishes, as a coachman who can take his horses where he likes. If life is unkind, do playwrights have to be so as well?
SHAKESPEARE - Do you believe that coachmen never meet with accidents?
ROMEO - Of course! But you would have no difficulty in improving our lot. You are our all-powerful god, won't you show kindness to us? Kindness is also an attribute of God, the greatest according to theologians.
SHAKESPEARE - Some don't agree with that, do you know… Anyhow it's very difficult to go back over what has been written. I did all I could to bring you both together and it's not my fault if the circumstances have been so cruel…
JULIET - Don't hide behind your shadow: the circumstances, that's of your making too. Moreover we would like to reconcile the Montagues and the Capulets. It means nothing to you and it would mean much to us.
ROMEO - Yes. We could go and have lunch on Sundays with our families and they could take care of the children while we go for a walk.
SHAKESPEARE - Aren't you afraid that our comedy would then lose its spice?
ROMEO - Maybe, but it would be a great victory of the Christian charity that must inspire all the actions of the citizens of the same town, an example to be given to the whole world.
SHAKESPEARE - What do you think of this, Nurse?
NURSE - I think indeed that it would be enough to make a few flourishes of your pen so as to change the whole landscape. Wouldn't you like to see people happy around you? And, if I can speak my mind, God forgive me, I think that a favour is never wasted and that…
JULIET - Stop talking, nurse… Our Mister playwright, could you also provide us with a less talkative nurse. All the more so since she began to drivel a lot.
SHAKESPEARE - This I will not do, because I like her as she is. But as for the other points, I will ponder them and, as one grows older one becomes benevolent…. Now leave and I'll see if, according to the mood of the moment, I can do what you have asked me.

3 - (some years later)
SHAKESPEARE - Tell me, Nurse, are they happy?
NURSE - Alas, Mr. Shakespeare… The play ends well… but afterwards our lovers turn out badly!
SHAKESPEARE – But I have done all I could!
NURSE - They have been very grateful. But it is sometimes a mistake to ask for too much.
SHAKESPEARE - Did they get married? Have they had children?
NURSE - Yes, but many of them died in their tender years, which caused them much suffering.
SHAKESPEARE - They are naïve! Didn't they know that it could happen like that?
NURSE - Yes, but in fact that's not the most important thing… Juliet is no longer as beautiful as she used to be and her mind, which was quick and witty, has become cantankerous, and sometimes her fits of angers cause all the entire house to shake.
SHAKESPEARE - And Romeo?
NURSE - In the beginning Romeo succeeded in bearing patiently with his Juliet's moods. But, unable to stay quietly at home for fear of having plates or glasses thrown at him in anger, he started frequenting taverns, drinking and having arguments, according to his nature, with whomever he doesn't like. And worse, he is persuaded that his wife is unfaithful… Which might be possible. As to the Montagues and Capulets, they made up, that is true, but having become very powerful, they plotted against the Prince who confiscated their properties and sentenced them to exile.
SHAKESPEARE - In short, I tried to be kind to them, but it didn't work out.
NURSE – It's difficult to say otherwise… But still more dreadful, we are not asked to perform our play any more. Or if we are, the audience becomes bored and leaves before the end… I have come to ask you… Couldn't we retrace our steps: As before, they would die, but they would die happy and the audiences would bring the house down.
SHAKESPEARE – Retrace our steps! …Do they agree?
NURSE - Of course! Anything rather than such a miserable life. And since it is necessary to die in order to exist…
SHAKESPEARE - Very well… I'll set to work immediately. But send a warning to all my other characters of all my other plays that what has been done has been done well, and that none of them, under the pretence of becoming happy, should ever dare to ask me for any change in my plots.


HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

There is general agreement that Shakespeare is the greatest playwright in the world, but a general disagreement as to who exactly was the man who wrote Shakespeare's plays.
It is quite certain that an actor named Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon in 1533 and died in the same town in 1616. It is also quite certain that in between these two dates he lived in London for quite a long time and belonged to some of the best theatrical troupes of the capital, in particular the one at the Globe theatre. Unfortunately we know almost nothing of what happened to him during that period because Shakespeare, except for being on the theatre pay-roll, was never mentioned anywhere else, which is strange for the man recognised as the first playwright in the Kingdom.
Still more strange is that such an obscure actor, even taking into account the possible acquaintances of his London period, was able to produce plays whose author seems to have been a great traveller, immensely learned, at home with the kings' and princes' way of thinking, very preoccupied by the problems of political power and succession. For these reasons many people have made the assumption that the true author of the plays was, in fact, some important person of the kingdom who wished to stay anonymous. Some thought of Sir Francis Bacon, others of William Stanley, Earl of Derby, who later, at the death of Elizabeth, laid claim to the throne, but was ousted by James I, son of Mary Stuart… That last hypothesis is all the more appealing because Lord Derby visited most of the places in France and Italy mentioned in Shakespeare's plays (Venice, Verona, Naples, Bordeaux, Nerac, where Henri of Navarre's court was located… etc.) and because the events of his life are often connected with the contemporary content of the plays.
Whatever these uncertainties may be, Shakespeare's plays were written mostly during the reign of Elizabeth I, at a time when England, tearing itself away from civil wars, became a prosperous nation and, by opposing Spain, acceded to the mastery of the seas. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII: having seen her father tyrannize his wives and send some of them to death, she always refused to be married and to fall under the power of a husband.
The author of Shakespeare's play is contemporary with the French king Henry IV, Montaigne, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Cervantes… He wrote about forty plays, full of poetry and imagination. The most famous are Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Henry V... They all belong to the common heritage of Mankind and are performed in many languages all over the world.

Non commercial use allowed. Reg. SACD - Michel Fustier, 4 Chambfort, 69 100 Villeurbanne, France. Tel: 00 33 (0)4 78 84 25 28.