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?
Copyright 2010 M Thomas Cooper. All rights reserved.