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Shakespeare on Stage

A sample of upcoming productions around the world.

American Shakespeare Center, A Mad World, My Masters. To Apr. 7, 2012.
American Shakespeare Center, Much Ado about Nothing. To Apr. 8, 2012.
Atlanta Shakespeare Company, The Merry Wives of Windsor. To Apr. 1, 2012.
American Shakespeare Center, Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding. To Apr. 6, 2012.
Orlando Shakespeare Theater in Partnership with UCF, Romeo and Juliet. To Mar. 17, 2012.
More Performances…
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Love's Labor's Lost (Folio 1, 1623)

Author: William Shakespeare
Not Peer Reviewed
Actus Quartus.
Enter the Pedant, Curate and Dull.
1740Pedant. Satis quid sufficit.
Curat. I praise God for you sir, your reasons at dinner
haue beene sharpe & sententious: pleasant without scur-
rillity, witty without affection, audacious without im-
pudency, learned without opinion, and strange without
1745heresie: I did conuerse this quondam day with a compa-
nion of the Kings, who is intituled, nominated, or called,
Don Adriano de Armatho.
Ped. Noui hominum tanquam te, His humour is lofty,
his discourse peremptorie: his tongue filed, his eye
1750ambitious, his gate maiesticall, and his generall behaui-
our vaine, ridiculous, and thrasonicall. He is too picked,
too spruce, too affected, too odde, as it were, too pere-
grinat, as I may call it.
Curat. A most singular and choise Epithat,
1755
Draw out his Table-booke.
Peda. He draweth out the thred of his verbositie, fi-
ner then the staple of his argument. I abhor such pha-
naticall phantasims, such insociable and poynt deuise
companions, such rackers of ortagriphie, as to speake
1760dout fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he shold
pronounce debt; d e b t, not det: he clepeth a Calf, Caufe:
halfe, haufe: neighbour vocatur nebour; neigh abreuiated
ne: this is abhominable, which he would call abhomi-
nable it insinuateth me of infamie: ne inteligis domine, to
1765make franticke, lunaticke?
Cura. Laus deo, bene intelligo.
Peda. Bome boon for boon prescian, a little scratcht, 'twil
serue.
Enter Bragart, Boy.
1770Curat. Vides ne quis venit?
Peda. Video, & gaudio.
Brag. Chirra.
Peda. Quari Chirra, not Sirra?
Brag. Men of peace well incountred.
1775Ped. Most millitarie sir salutation.
Boy. They haue beene at a great feast of Languages,
and stolne the scraps.
Clow. O they haue liu'd long on the almes-basket of
words. I maruell thy M. hath not eaten thee for a word,
1780for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitu-
dinitatibus: Thou art easier swallowed then a flapdra-
gon.
Page. Peace, the peale begins.
Brag. Mounsier, are you not lettred?
1785Page. Yes, yes, he teaches boyes the Horne-booke:
What is Ab speld backward with the horn on his head?
Peda. Ba, puericia with a horne added.
Pag. Ba most seely Sheepe, with a horne: you heare
his learning.
1790Peda. Quis quis, thou Consonant?
Pag. The last of the fiue Vowels if You repeat them,
or the fift if I.
Peda. I will repeat them: a e I.
Pag. The Sheepe, the other two concludes it o u.
1795Brag. Now by the salt waue of the mediteranium, a
sweet tutch, a quicke vene we of wit, snip snap, quick &
home, it reioyceth my intellect, true wit.
Page. Offered by a childe to an olde man: which is
wit-old.
1800Peda. What is the figure? What is the figure?
Page. Hornes.
Peda. Thou disputes like an Infant: goe whip thy
Gigge.
Pag. Lend me your Horne to make one, and I will
1805whip about your Infamie vnum cita a gigge of a Cuck-
olds horne.
Clow. And I had but one penny in the world, thou
shouldst haue it to buy Ginger bread: Hold, there is the
very Remuneration I had of thy Maister, thou halfpenny
1810purse of wit, thou Pidgeon-egge of discretion. O & the
heauens were so pleased, that thou wert but my Bastard;
What a ioyfull father wouldst thou make mee? Goe to,
thou hast it ad dungil, at the fingers ends, as they say.
Peda. Oh I smell false Latine, dunghel for vnguem.
1815Brag. Arts-man preambulat, we will bee singled from
the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the Charg-
house on the top of the Mountaine?
Peda. Or Mons the hill.
Brag. At your sweet pleasure, for the Mountaine.
1820Peda. I doe sans question.
Bra. Sir, it is the Kings most sweet pleasure and af-
fection, to congratulate the Princesse at her Pauilion, in
the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call
the after-noone.
1825Ped. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is lia-
ble, congruent, and measurable for the after-noone: the
word is well culd, chose, sweet, and apt I doe assure you
sir, I doe assure.
Brag. Sir, the King is a noble Gentleman, and my fa-
1830miliar, I doe assure ye very good friend: for what is in-
ward betweene vs, let it passe. I doe beseech thee re-
member thy curtesie. I beseech thee apparell thy head:
and among other importunate & most serious designes,
and of great import indeed too: but let that passe, for I
1835must tell thee it will please his Grace (by the world)
sometime to leane vpon my poore shoulder, and with
his royall finger thus dallie with my excrement, with my
mustachio: but sweet heart, let that passe. By the world
I recount no fable, some certaine speciall honours it
1840pleaseth his greatnesse to impart to Armado a Souldier,
a man of trauell, that hath seene the world: but let that
passe; the very all of all is: but sweet heart I do implore
secrecie, that the King would haue mee present the
Princesse (sweet chucke) with some delightfull ostenta-
1845tion, or show, or pageant, or anticke, or fire-worke:
Now, vnderstanding that the Curate and your sweet self
are good at such eruptions, and sodaine breaking out of
myrth (as it were) I haue acquainted you withall, to
the end to craue your assistance.
1850Peda. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Wor-
thies. Sir Holofernes, as concerning some entertainment
of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to bee
rendred by our assistants the Kings command: and this
most gallant, illustrate and learned Gentleman, before
1855the Princesse: I say none so fit as to present the Nine
Worthies.
Curat. Where will you finde men worthy enough to
present them?
Peda. Iosua, your selfe: my selfe, and this gallant gen-
1860tleman Iudas Machabeus; this Swaine (because of his
great limme or ioynt) shall passe Pompey the great, the
Page Hercules.
Brag. Pardon sir, error: He is not quantitie enough
for that Worthies thumb, hee is not so big as the end of
1865his Club.
Peda. Shall I haue audience? he shall present Hercu-
les in minoritie: his enter and exit shall bee strangling a
Snake; and I will haue an Apologie for that purpose.
Pag. An excellent deuice: so if any of the audience
1870hisse, you may cry, Well done Hercules, now thou cru-
shest the Snake; that is the way to make an offence gra-
cious, though few haue the grace to doe it.
Brag. For the rest of the Worthies?
Peda. I will play three my selfe.
1875Pag. Thrice worthy Gentleman.
Brag. Shall I tell you a thing?
Peda. We attend.
Brag. We will haue, if this fadge not, an Antique. I
beseech you follow.
1880Ped. Via good-man Dull, thou hast spoken no word
all this while.
Dull. Nor vnderstood none neither sir.
Ped. Alone, we will employ thee.
Dull. Ile make one in a dance, or so: or I will play
1885on the taber to the Worthies, & let them dance the hey.
Ped. Most Dull, honest Dull, to our sport away. Exit.