Edward Marston: The Malevolent Comedy

‘There’s no law to stop an author writing about Ancient Rome,’ said Nicholas, reasonably. ‘The play in which you shone was masterly, I grant you, but there have been others on the same subject. Master Vavasor and Master Hame clearly believe they can conjure a new shape out of this old material.’

‘Theft! Plagiarism! Iniquity!’

Firethorn stormed around the room as if he were Pompey the Great on receipt of bad news about a battle. He roared, cursed and made violent gestures. Pompey was one of his favourite roles. Too possessive to let anyone else take it on, he was appalled by the notion that Randolph would usurp him. It was insupportable. Stopping beside the wooden table, he thumped it so hard with a fist that the manuscript lying on it was tossed inches in the air. The sight of the fluttering pages took all the rage out of him. It was replaced by cold despair.

‘A pox on it!’ he cried, picking up the manuscript. ‘They have this wondrous Lamberto with a new-minted tragedy to follow it and what can we set against them?’ He flung the sheaf of papers down. ‘This dull and feeble comedy about a lovesick milkmaid. Pah!’

‘ How to Choose a Good Wife has its merits,’ said Nicholas, defensively.

‘Enough to put before a paying audience?’

‘Edmund has written better plays, it’s true.’

‘Answer my question, Nick.’

‘Barnaby liked it.’

‘Barnaby Gill likes any play that allows him to pull faces at the audience and dance those tedious jigs of his. And what does he know about choosing a good wife?’ he added, raising a meaningful eyebrow. ‘Unless the wife in question is a pretty boy with sweet lips and a compliant body. Don’t fob me off with Barnaby’s opinion,’ he warned. ‘Give me your own. Is this play fit for performance?’

Nicholas took a deep breath. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

‘Not ever. It’s the worst thing that Edmund has ever penned.’

‘It needs a little work, that’s all.’

‘What it needs is another plot, another set of characters and another title. Most of all, Nick,’ he insisted, ‘it needs what every comedy needs and that is comic substance. There’s not a decent laugh in it from start to finish. Worse still — there’s not an indecent laugh.’

‘That’s too harsh an opinion.’

‘It’s the one that Edmund will hear when he arrives, and he’s due here any moment. I’m in no mood to spare his feelings. He’s contracted to supply us with plays of quality — not with this base, brown paper stuff.’ He gave a snort. ‘Edmund Hoode may know how to choose a wife but he’s forgotten how to write a comedy. I’ll tell him so to his face.’

Right on cue, there was a knock at the front door and they heard Firethorn’s wife, Margery, going to answer it. Nicholas glanced down at the fateful manuscript. Edmund Hoode was a close friend of his and he wanted to protect him from the actor-manager’s scorn. A man who had provided so many good plays for the company over the years deserved due consideration. Nicholas stepped forward.

‘Let me speak to him,’ he volunteered.

‘I commissioned the play,’ said Firethorn. ‘I’ll hurl it back at him.’

‘That’s what you did to Master Vavasor.’

Sobered by the reminder, the actor retreated into a sullen silence. When his wife conducted Edmund Hoode into the room, Firethorn spared him no more than a curt nod. Nicholas, by contrast, gave him a warm greeting. Margery looked on with a hospitable smile. She was a handsome woman in her thirties, still vivacious and blossoming in male company. The tall, pale, moon-faced, ever-anxious Hoode always aroused her maternal instincts. She touched his arm.

‘Can I get you anything, Edmund?’ she enquired.

‘You can get us all something strong to drink,’ said Firethorn. ‘I have a feeling that we’ll need it.’

‘Yes, Lawrence.’

‘Open that bottle of Canary wine.’

‘I will.’

Margery lifted the hem of her dress and tripped out of the room. Hoode’s eye went straight to the play that lay on the table. Before Firethorn could speak, Nicholas interrupted him.

‘Why don’t we all sit down?’ he suggested, lowering himself into a chair. The others sat opposite him. ‘How are you, Edmund?’

‘Keen to hear your opinion of the play,’ replied Hoode. ‘I know that you went to the Curtain today. How did Lamberto fare?’

‘Very well indeed.’

‘Enough of this turgid tragedy!’ protested Firethorn. ‘I’ll not have Banbury’s Men praised under my roof. The only play that concerns me is the one that lies on that table.’

‘That’s what I came to discuss,’ said Hoode. ‘I worked long and hard on How to Choose a Good Wife . When will it go into rehearsal?’

‘Never!’

‘What Lawrence means,’ said Nicholas, trying to soften the blow, ‘is that the play is not yet entirely ready to be put before an audience. It lacks your usual deft touch, Edmund.’

‘It lacks anything that might commend it,’ announced Firethorn.

Hoode was distressed. ‘You thought it that poor?’

‘Poverty itself.’

‘But not without its finer points,’ said Nicholas, keen to offer his friend some solace. ‘Barnaby was delighted with his role and I believe the scene at the fair was a small masterpiece. Taken as a whole, however, the piece does not hang together.’

‘Then it is rejected ?’ said Hoode, shaken to the core.

‘For the time being, perhaps.’

‘That’s all eternity in my book,’ declared Firethorn. ‘I’d not dare to feed an audience on such a half-baked matter as that. It would stick in their throats.’ Margery came into the room with a tray. ‘This is the way to choose a good wife,’ he went on, cheerfully. ‘Follow my example. Pick a comely creature who knows when and how to satisfy your appetites.’ He patted Margery on the rump. ‘Thank you, my love.’

‘We’ve company,’ she scolded, gently. ‘Behave yourself, Lawrence.’

‘Why? Nick and Edmund know how much I adore you.’

‘Tell me about your adoration at a more seemly time.’

After handing each man a cup of wine, she went back to the kitchen. Firethorn took a long sip of his drink while Nicholas set his cup down on the table. Hoode stared bleakly into his own wine as if seeing the dregs of his career as a playwright. A pessimist at the best of times, he now sank into complete despondency. Seeing his gloom, Firethorn repented of his bluntness and felt sorry for him. Nicholas, for once, was unable to find words of comfort for his friend. It was Hoode who finally broke the awkward silence.

‘You are both right,’ he conceded, sadly. ‘You tell me nothing that I didn’t know myself when I laboured on it. How to Choose a Good Wife is a case of How to Write a Bad Play . Barnaby was pleased with his role because I gave the Clown several scenes and let him dance in each one. All that he bothered to look at were the parts in which he appeared. You, on the other hand, read the whole play and saw how shapeless it was.’

‘That can be remedied,’ said Nicholas.

‘Not by me, Nick.’

‘You have a gift for construction.’

‘Then it’s left me,’ said Hoode. ‘I’m not the man I was. My wit no longer sparks, my pen no longer flows. The well of creation has dried up.’

‘How oft have we heard you say that?’

‘This time, I mean it.’

‘You meant it when you spoke the very same words about your last play,’ Nicholas reminded him, ‘and with some justice. When you were writing A Way to Content All Women , you were struck down with such a pernicious disease that you never thought to recover. Yet, when you did, you finished the play within a week and it turned out to be the sprightliest comedy of the season. Your well has not gone dry, Edmund. You simply have to lower the bucket a little further in it.’