Margaret Atwood - Hag-Seed

“Briefly,” says Felix.

“Okay, it’s like 3-D, only you don’t need the glasses. But if he’s a projection, who’s projecting him? Is it Prospero? Is Ariel coming from inside Prospero’s head? It can’t be that, we figured, because when Prospero says, ‘To the elements be free,’ and lets Ariel go, then he would just vanish. He would snuff out. That wouldn’t be any way fair, after all the awesome stuff he did for Prospero.

“So we read up on elementals, thanks for the notes, Mr. Duke, and we figure he’s a holographic projection of, like, weather systems. He’s an air-spirit, plus he can do fire and water as well, so he’s got a handle on those kinds of things. Like on the Weather Network, you can see those dust devils and waterspouts, and the way clouds generate electricity — that’s where the energy comes from, the energy Ariel uses for all the jobs he does for Prospero. Because those would take a lot of energy, especially the lightning.

“So after the end of the play Ariel’s not picked up by a spaceship, and he’s not hanging out in flowers on a galaxy far, far away. Maybe he has a little vacation, with the cowslips and whatever — he’s earned it, right? But after that he stays on earth, and he flies off to tackle climate change. Sort of like Storm in the X-Men, only without the white eyeballs, plus he’s not a girl. He’s really happy to be doing that kind of work because he wants to help, he’s always been helpful, he just didn’t like being told what to do all the time, he wanted a project of his own, and he’s got more of a soul and feelings than Prospero used to think he had: it says that right in the play.

“We think our idea is a good one, and it all fits.

“Signed, 8Handz, WonderBoy, PPod, and Shiv.”

8Handz waits, looking nervous. There’s nodding and murmuring around the room.

“Unusual!” says Felix. “Very inventive! Wish I’d thought of that myself.” This is not a lie: he does wish it, more or less. Never mind that climate change hadn’t been heard of in Shakespeare’s day: Felix told them to make their own interpretations, and they have. “Any objections?” There aren’t: it’s the last day and everyone is in a good mood. “Full points,” says Felix.

Happy grins from Team Ariel. 8Handz returns to his desk, receives shoulder slaps from his teammates. “Next up is Team Evil Bro Antonio,” says Felix. “Let’s see how Antonio’s fate plays out.”

SnakeEye swaggers to the front of the room, looking as if he’s wearing an overcoat, collar up, and a fedora low over the forehead. There’s an invisible gun in this picture somewhere, under his arm. He pushes out his chin, lowers his eyebrows, lifts a corner of lip. Is he still in character? It’s hard for Felix to tell. In every part SnakeEye has played over the years he’s always been villainous, almost too villainous. He skirts the edge of comedy, but he’s never fallen over into it. He’s the dark double of everyone in the room, and as such he’s scary. The air goes silent.

“So, Team Antonio is me, naturally,” he begins, “plus King Alonso — I mean, Krampus — and Phil the Pill, who’s Sebastian, plus VaMoose, who’s my understudy and learned the part better than me. All of these guys got to know Antonio up close and personal, so they have a true take on what he’s likely to do once the ship sails off for Naples with everyone on board. We all wrote this, I only happen to be the one reading it. Thanks, Phil, for helping with the spelling, though I have to say you’ve got crap handwriting like doctors have, I could hardly read your notes.” The tension breaks: laughter from the class.

“So here goes. The Report of Team Evil Bro Antonio.

“First, Antonio is the most hardcore evil guy in the play. You can’t think of one non-evil thing he does. He’s always out for Number One, namely himself. Even his plan to murder the King and Gonzalo so Sebastian can be King isn’t done for Sebastian, it’s done for Antonio, because their deal is that Milan, namely him, Antonio, won’t have to pay no — won’t have to pay any tribute, which is like taxes. So it’s like a tax evasion, only with murder.

“But on Antonio’s side, you need to add that it’s partly Prospero’s fault because he wasn’t interested in anything but his magic. It was like leaving your car unlocked: he made crime easy for Antonio. So what can you expect, Prospero was stupid, he had it coming, though Antonio must’ve been evil to begin with or he wouldn’t have taken advantage.

“But the more evil he did, the eviler he got; it was like Macbeth, for those of you who were in it. It was like the blood speech, right? ‘I am in blood / Stepp’d in so far that should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er,’ and some of us know about that first-hand, right, because once you get going on a thing you think it’s chickenshit to back off, and you need to finish it. Get it done. Whatever it is.” Sage nodding from the cast, or some of them.

“Anyhow, no risk to Antonio during his first evildoings, because Prospero don’t — he doesn’t notice, he’s got his head jammed so far up his ass — sorry for the language, Anne-Marie — he’s got his head buried in the magic sand like an ostrich or whatever, and he doesn’t see a thing. He’s so busy with bossing around the imps and what-not and making the dead bodies come out of the graves — why was he doing it, anyway? — that he’s careless about his own body, close to home. He admits that himself, at the beginning. He would’ve been better to act like Antonio: Never trust nobody. Anybody.

“So that’s the kind of guy Antonio is, love him or hate him, and I guess you mostly hate him. But he has his own take on things, like everybody. So, he gets onto the ship for Naples, and what does he do?

“Remember, Prospero forgives him in a way, and we wrote ‘in a way’ because Prospero says he won’t tell anything about the plan to murder the King at this time . ‘ At this time I will tell no tales,’ he says, which means he’ll most likely do it later, and then Antonio’s cooked.

“Alonso the King tells Prospero he’s sorry, but Antonio doesn’t say sorry. He’s not sorry. He’s most likely mad as — really mad because he got caught, and so he won’t be the Duke any more, and he could get life in prison or else his head cut off, the way they did with traitors like him.

“So he bides his time on the sailing trip, and when they’re almost to Naples he starts up another plot with Sebastian, and they sneak into King Alonso’s cabin and smother him. After that there’s a sword fight with Ferdinand, who catches them in the act, but they win the fight and kill him because it’s two against one, plus they cheat.

“Then they stab Prospero, because the stupid klutz has let Ariel go free by then, what an idiot, so Prospero’s not magic any more. They go to deal with Gonzalo, who’s halfway dead of fright anyway, but he has a stroke before they need to kill him, and he just falls over. Then they rape Miranda — sorry, Anne-Marie, but that’s how it would go down — and they include Caliban in on the rape for extra punishment to her — raped by a monster — so Caliban finally gets what he wants.

“But then they start to throw the girl overboard so there won’t be any heir to Milan, but Caliban hates that idea, he wants to keep Miranda around, rape her some more, and he tries to stop them, so they murder Caliban too. Stephano and Trinculo stay out of the way because they’re cowards, plus they want to keep their jobs at the court or whatever. You can’t blame them, they’re like anyone.