Margaret Atwood - Hag-Seed

“Yeah,” says Leggs. Break-and-enter, assault. He’s a veteran of the Fletcher Correctional stage, having played Mark Antony in Julius Caesar , one of the witches in Macbeth , and Clarence in Richard III. “We read it. But why’re we doing this one? There’s no fight scene, and it’s got, like, a fairy in it.”

“I’m not being a fairy,” says PPod. He’d been Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Richmond in Richard III . He’s a sweet-talker, with — according to him — a bevy of devoted beauties waiting for him once he gets out.

“Not being a girl, either.” That from Shiv: he has a Somali drug-gang connection and was caught in a big bust a few years back. He looks around the room for support: truculent nods, murmurings of agreement. No one wants either of these parts: not the Ariel, not the Miranda.

Felix has a potential rebellion on his hands, but he’s anticipated it. He’s faced the gender issue in the other plays, but those female characters had been grown women and either ciphers or downright nasty, and thus much easier to accept. The witches in Macbeth had been a pushover — the guys had no objection to playing evil crones because they were monsters, not actual women — and Calpurnia was minor. Lady Macbeth was even more of a monster than the witches: PPod said she was just like his mother, and had enacted her to great effect. Lady Anne in Richard III was angry and a spitfire; in fact, she was a spitter. Shiv had made a meal of it.

Miranda, however, is not a monster or a grown woman. She’s a girl, and a vulnerable girl. Any man playing her would lose status in a disastrous way. He’d become a butt, a target. Playing a girl, he’d risk being treated as one. It would be ruinous for the Ferdinand as well: having to pitch those swooning love speeches to a surly fellow inmate.

“Let’s get the girl thing out of the way right now,” says Felix. “First, nobody in this room will have to be Miranda. Miranda is a sweet, innocent fifteen-year-old. I can’t see any of you being very convincing with that.”

The grunts of relief are audible. “Okay, good,” says Shiv. “But if nobody here’s doing it, then who is?”

“I shall engage…” Felix pauses, rearranges his language. “I’m hiring a professional actress,” he says. “An actual woman,” he adds so they truly grasp the point.

“She’s coming in here?” says PPod. “To be in our play?” They look at one another, incredulous. Already The Tempest is more appealing to some of them.

“You can get some chick to do that?”

WonderBoy, the soulful-eyed con man, speaks up. “I don’t think it’s right that you’d bring a young girl in here. You’re putting her in a weird position. Not that I’d lay a finger myself,” he says. “But. Just sayin’.”

“Yeah, you fuckin’ A would,” says a voice from the back. Laughter.

“She’ll be acting the part of a young girl,” says Felix. “I didn’t say she would be a young girl. Not that she’ll be old,” he adds to counter the expressions of dismay. “Consider her participation a privilege. Any trouble — pestering, groping, pinching, dirty talk, and so forth — and she’s gone, and so are you. I expect you all to behave like the professional actors I consider you to be.” Not that professional actors fail to indulge in the pinching and groping, he reminds himself. But no need to share that reflection.

“Some lucky stiff’s gonna be playing Ferdie what’s-his-name,” says Leggs. “Gets those hot closeup scenes.”

“Stiff is right,” says PPod.

“Guy’s gonna be so stiff he’ll be frozen.” Murmuring, chuckling.

“We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” says Felix.

“That’s all very well,” says Bent Pencil, the embezzling accountant. His stage name has been conferred upon him by common consent. He wasn’t too pleased about it at first, he tried to insist on something more dignified, such as “Numbers.” He wanted to preserve his feeling of superiority. But he’s come to accept “Bent Pencil,” because what choice does he have?

Bent Pencil played Cassius in Julius Caesar and is a stickler on details, often tediously so. Felix finds him a trial. He always wants to show how well prepared he is. Gonzalo, he thinks: Bent Pencil is excellent for it.

“That’s all very well,” Bent Pencil goes on, “but you haven’t addressed the issue of the, uh…the Ariel issue.”

“Yeah, the fairy,” says Leggs.

“We’ll discuss that on Friday,” says Felix. “Now, your first written exercise. I want you to go through the text very carefully and make a list of all the curse words in the play. Those are the only curse words we’ll be using in this room. Anyone caught using those other words, the F-bomb and so on, loses a point off their total. Counting of points is by the honor system, but we are one another’s witnesses. Understood?”

Grins from the veterans: Felix always sets the class a challenge like this.

“We playing for cigarettes?” asks PPod. “As usual?”

“Of course,” says Felix. “Once you have your list, pick ten of those curse words and memorize them, and then learn how to spell them. Those will be your special swear words. You can apply them in this class to anyone and anything. If you don’t know what they mean I’ll be happy to tell you. Ready, steady, go!”

Heads are bent, notebooks are opened, playbooks are consulted, pencils busy themselves.

Your profanity, thinks Felix, has oft been your whoreson hag-born progenitor of literacy. Along with your whoreson cigarettes, may the red plague rid them.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013.

On the Wednesday, Felix is feeling more relaxed. He’s over the first hurdle. He puts on his most avuncular face: indulgent but hoping for excellence. “Let’s see how you made out with your curse words,” he says. “Who’s got the consolidated list?”

“Bent Pencil,” says Shiv.

“And who’s going to read it so we can all hear it?”

“Him,” says Leggs.

“ ’Cause he can pronounce them,” says PPod.

Bent Pencil takes the floor and reads out, gravely and impressively, in his best board-meeting voice: “Born to be hanged. A pox o’your throat. Bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog. Whoreson. Insolent noisemaker. Wide-chapp’d rascal. Malignant thing. Blue-eyed hag. Freckled whelp hag-born. Thou earth. Thou tortoise. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself. As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed, With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both. A south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o’er. Toads, beetles, bats light on you. Filth as thou art. Abhorr’ed slave. The red plague rid you. Hag-seed. All the infections that the sun sucks up, From bogs, fens, flats, fall on — add name here — and make him, By inch-meal a disease. Most scurvy monster. Most perfidious and drunken monster. Moon-calf. Pied ninny. Scurvy patch. A murrain on you. The devil take your fingers. The dropsy drown this fool. Demi-devil. Thing of darkness.”

“Well done,” says Felix. “That sounds fairly complete. I can’t think of anything you’ve missed. Any questions or comments?”

“I been called worse,” says PPod.

“Why is earth such an insult?” says Leggs.

“Yeah, we live on the earth,” says Red Coyote. “It grows food, right? And tortoise . That’s like a turtle, right? It’s a sacred thing for some nations. Why is it bad, a turtle?”