M. Thomas Cooper

Romeo and Juliet rise from the grave as vampires.

CHARACTERS

Romeo: The Young Lover.

Juliet: The Young Lover.

Count Draginov: The infamous Apothecary. He has something of a Slavic accent and a decidedly dark demeanor.

Gorick: The strange and demented apothecary’s assistant, literally a bloody fool. There is a knife lodged in his back which occasionally causes him great vexation—much like a dog chasing its tail.

Primo and Segundo: Two Watchmen.

(A tomb in a churchyard. Gorick enters.)

                                                            GORICK

Ah, goodly gathered citizens, I welcome you,

I do commend and present thee

To this vacant space, this churchyard, this tomb,

To relate a story both tragic and gory.

Once, two young lovers….

(Romeo and Juliet enter. They subsequently mime—rather quickly—their courtship.)

Did seek to consummate

A pure, a simple, a perfect desire,

But families weighted with foils and hate,

Did assist fetid, foul Fate

To slake its fiendish thirst…

 (Romeo and Juliet, without Paris, mime their death scene.)

And, thus, the youths did fall

Under Death’s dark mirth.

And where Cupid’s hope did fail,

My master, a midnight necromancer and apothecary…

(A shadowy figure, Count Draginov, enters. He goes to Romeo and Juliet, and feeds momentarily on their necks.)

Accompanied by the Vampire’s hunger,

Did marry the lovers,

To a bed and bower

Fragranced with the most insipid flower—immortality.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Rise young Capulet,

Rise young Montague,

And taste life anew!

                                                (Romeo and Juliet slowly wake and rise.)

                                                            GORICK

Thus our story, once ended tragic but true,

Now, thanks be to the blackest of black magic,

Begins… anew.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Gorick, thou hoodwinked fool, whoever dost thou attend to?

                                                            GORICK

Goodly master, I speak to the ethereal ether,

I consult the starry firmament,

I converse with moonbeams and cherubim.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Had I known such poisoned meat was placed in such sacred peat

I would never have set thee free.

                                                            GORICK

Ego ergo sum compris

Souls are fickle as can be

Do not judge them by place or time

But what realm they do find to spend their crime.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Crime? Didst thou commit one? What mean you?

                                                            GORICK

I mean many things, master, insinuated and implied.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Yes, but precisely what with Life at Death’s divide?

                                                            GORICK

Honestly, at how it has been spent.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Life?

                                                            GORICK

Indeed. Like any purse it is full or empty, waiting to be cut.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Oh, cackling fool, be gone with you,

Lest I, in due hast, return thee to your graveyard’s nest.

                                                            GORICK

Cackling, as the fiendish fowl would confess, is what I do best.

And though I’ve oft thanked thee for my resurrection,

As my unmitigated labor dost proclaim,

I would, regardless if it be profane, claim

For this world hast become too, too loud,

I wish I were returned to that cloud of silence.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Complain no more, foolish churl,

Return hence to the castle.

Make haste and make great care

To prepare the sacred lair

For we’ve two more vampiric souls to welcome there.

                                                            GORICK

Yes, master, whatever thy command.

And though my back dost ache and itch

I shall sweep and mop and dust and scour

Through the hour of your arrival.

                                                            DRAGINOV

Go thee, thy glib gullet, get thee and thy top to the lair,

Lest I remove from thy shoulders thy head and hair.

                                                            GORICK

Oh, I am off. For to be on, I fear,

I’d likely be cuffed to the stake.

                                                (Gorick exits.)

                                                            DRAGINOV

Briefly I shall linger to witness

This kind reunion so fair, and yet… so foul.

                                                            ROMEO

The elixir, the Devil’s dark liquid that invited Death,

That was to drown my life and unite me with my love,

Has it failed? Or is this Hell’s demented dream?

                                                            JULIET

How has the dagger failed its appointed duty?

Surely, upon my waking, its sharp tongue did taste….

                                                            ROMEO

Juliet?

                                                            JULIET

My… my beloved Romeo?

                                                            ROMEO

‘Tis I. And yet I cannot help but wonder

Could not the Devil, regardless of splendor, be so disguised?