Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Ted and Alice: An Alternate Ending

Act V: Scene 1

A graveyard. Elsinore castle on the horizon. 

Music: Gyuto Monks Tantric Choir

(Enter GRAVEDIGGER and ASSISTANT, carrying shovels. The music fades.)

GRAVEDIGGER

Here another as died of slings. Hark ye, that maketh three this se’nnight alone, far more than e’er arrows took ’count of.

ASSISTANT

Aye, outrageous, as hast oft proclaim’d. Yet of sling control can good Claudius hear no word, without the National Sling Association stone the sayer to death.

GRAVEDIGGER

And so be the ill cured, for as none shall speak ill of the dead, so less still do the dead speak ill of others.

ASSISTANT

Though that the dead feel nor hunger nor thirst, nor yet woe nor joy, what care they who speaketh it?

GRAVEDIGGER

There thou sayest false, in the first part, because hunger they know full well, in fine, the hunger of such worms as make feast upon them. Then in the second, as to thirst, did not the Greeks give libations?

ASSISTANT

And is my name Greek, that I should care for their custom?

GRAVEDIGGER

As much as Ophelia is a Danish name. For her bed is next our task to make, and while I have no wish to share it with her after, fain would I help her to drink, an it be but warm sangria her mourners offer, for ours is thirsty work.

ASSISTANT

Alas, so the lady is dead, then?

GRAVEDIGGER

As cause doth precede effect, and we prepare her grave. For, mark well, did effect precede cause, then our labor be murder, and we should find more honest work at digging our own graves, so to pay for the hangman’s rope. Go, see what place thou mayest find to lay her.

ASSISTANT

Oh! There’s some lovely filth down here.

(They disappear below the ground. Enter Hamlet with Horatio, passing a bottle between them.)

HORATIO

My lord did what?

HAMLET

I served them according to their

Desserts, and so they ’scap’d not whipped cream.

HORATIO

As much as to say that thou saw’st them well dished.

So Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, those merry

buffoons, late thy companions at crawling by turn

An hundred Wittenberg pubs, and as many again

In Cologne, Bremen, Heidelberg, and Metz,

Now are, in the vulgar parlance, dead.

HAMLET

Indeed, they are ex-crawlers. Of pubs

they have no further need,

In Heidelberg nor Bremen nor Metz.

Of cologne they could make as good use as did they

In life, though no less likely to neglect it.

HORATIO

They did reek?

HAMLET

Something was rotten

In England, soon as their ship did touch.

HORATIO

Yet it seemeth to me over-harsh.

Knowing their design and whence it truly came,

Thou could’st but have called them on’t, and left them, for pity’s sake, to play 

the sycophant with thy vain cousins

In dreary London Town.

HAMLET

Honest Horatio!

Thy heart would do good credit to saints,

Or to those who taught thee better

Than me. But soft, who comes nigh?

(They both conceal themselves behind a thin, leafless sapling.)

(Enter CLAUDIUS, LAERTES, GERTRUDE, YORIK JR., PRIEST, and SERVANTS with a shrouded corpse on a stretcher.)

CLAUDIUS

It should, an young Yorik be not as astray

In his direction as in his wit,

Be around here someplace. Prepare such rites

And solemnities as seem mete

And due to one so near our hearts though

Below our station.

(The PRIEST reads from a book.)

HORATIO

Beareth not that distaff device

The badge of Polonius? Wherefore, they

Do bury fair Ophelia.

HAMLET

O woe is me,

And I am woe, as nouns so joined

In copulation each upon the other

Lie. I am, was, and will ever both

Be and be not. Do I think?

Or merely think that I think,

and so the insubstantial thought itself

Is I?

HORATIO

Fret not on any thing

So lacking in substance as thought.

All this is in thine head, and the woe

Thou claimest as thy very self,

Yea, and too each seeming atom

Of creation, have no life but that 

Our own weightless thoughts bestow.

HAMLET

If all be in my head,

Where, then, is my head?

CLAUDIUS

’Ware the edge!

GERTRUDE

Thy alarm arrives too late.

Laertes, o’ercome with keenness

To see a pit before his time,

Hath forgot it is new made this hour.

HAMLET

My friend is discomfited, mayhap

With timely aid I can relieve his state.

HORATIO

Take heed, sir, for the edge

Being but weekly formed and thereunto 

Wet, as will bear no mortal foot.

… Nay, I fear he minds me not

And the loosened ground betrays his tread.

Art hurt, my lord?

HAMLET

Yet quick am I, and yet not quick

Enough to miss this grave, yet further,

Of grave injuries have I none.

Still, we two may not stand, so viscous

Is this slime, that sucketh off

The very shoes from our feet.

CLAUDIUS

See how they scrabble together, ever deeper

In th’earth, digging like badgers

Or like the basest moles. Again

Falls the first to land upon the other.

GERTRUDE

For shame, Laertes! Hast so soon

Forgot all thy good sire’s counsel,

Who did charge thee, neither

Burrower nor lander be?

LAERTES

Some villain hath rent my best

Paris doublet, called by some gaudy,

Though I like it well. What, is it

Prince Hamlet, come all unheralded 

Into the midst of our muck-up of mourning? 

HAMLET

I have done nor thee nor thy

Pretty drapery hurt by design.

LAERTES

Shalt make good the hole in my garment,

Sir, or answer for’t.

HAMLET

When thou makest good

The hole in my purse that bought it for thee.

(They tussle.)

GRAVEDIGGER and ASSISTANT

Ouch!

HAMLET

Speak now the dead and buried spirits of this

Place? Is judgement come this very hour,

That hands long decayed tug at my sleeve?

GRAVEDIGGER

Nay, noble sirs, stay your blows, and save them for more worthy hides. We are but diggers of graves, fallen like you on our heads, and on whose heads in turn your wrath falls.

LAERTES

Then art surely sound, for a fall

From so lowly an estate can do

No injury. Now bend thy back,

And heave me hence.

HAMLET

This lesser cur,

Like attired in schmutz, to me like office

Shall render.

GRAVEDIGGER

From cur we are promoted to horse. Never let say thy career falters in my care.

ASSISTANT

Thy promotions mays’t keep; mine own place, poor as t’was, I will not trade. I think horses backs make better seats than my browned nose. 

GRAVEDIGGER

As I am the son of a scullery whore, abused to kiss ignoble parts, however noble the whole.

GERTRUDE

Now let Yorick’s get, soonest get us

Away from these bone-digging mutts. So

Lead us hence, to bathe our wounds and sorrows.

(Exeunt HAMLET, HORATIO, CLAUDIUS etc., leaving only the GRAVEDIGGER and ASSISTANT in the open pit with their faces covered in mud.)

GRAVEDIGGER

You seem, my son, in a moveless way.

ASSISTANT

I confess myself well stuck, and as well dismayed. How come we forth?

GRAVEDIGGER

So mired in sin, and for our good deeds thus martyr’d. We are baptized in mud, where our less holy betters rise, as they conceive, immaculate, who stood upon their saviors’ bended backs. A plague on both their trousers.

Scene 2

A hall in Elsinore. 

Scene change music: Mozart Divertimento K. 136, third movement

(Hamlet and Horatio, wearing bathrobes, are trimming their toenails.)

HORATIO

The bath’s the thing to flush the weary leagues

We both did ply, thou from Albion, I

From Germany, here to join our fates again.

But whence this draft that doth shame the walls

Of mighty Elsinore, and of the steaming chamber

An icy trial make?

HAMLET

I do tender thee apology for the chilling draft;

Know then when the wind is in the north

As now, the stacks draw ill, the stokers choke,

And so our hams in tepid waters steep.

HORATIO

The wind in truth is high, as maketh my mind

To blow. And that other fragrance that did assail

Our nostrils in ablutions?

HAMLET

Know further that the royal mews, once dear

To Hamlet, erst king in this royal seat, lie close

Situate unto the baths, unused, abandoned,

Untended, yea, uncleaned these six months and more,

That on such winds, do fowl do-dos rise.

HORATIO

Loved thy father better his falcons or his hawks?

HAMLET

Forsooth, I ne’er could tell one from t’other.

(Enter OSRIC)

OSRIC

Hail good prince and welcome

To Elsinore, where the king, thy father,

Bids thee attend here, soon in friendship

to make amends, and with keen blades

Stand across from Laertes, like armed,

that same whose own beloved family, 

Thro’ violence as thro’ indifference, thou didst

Of late wipe out to a man.

To which the queen thy dam further commands

I should relate, there will be cake,

and such instances of confectioner’s art,

As do uncommon fun foretell.

HAMLET 

Though no father to me nor to any

Worthy thought or deed, I will here

This Claudius await. 

OSRIC

May I take my leave?

HAMLET

If ’tis truly thy proper leave,

Mayst take it, and none can let thee.

Mine own leave I give freely,

To take what is thine, sirrah.

OSRIC(Aside)

Now there’s a prince fit for winds that blow

Both hot and cold.

(Exit OSRIC)

(Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, etc. The bearers from Scene 1 bring in the stretcher. GRAVEDIGGER and ASSISTANT, still muddy, now wear grimy aprons as they push in carts of food and drink. Among the bottles on GRAVEDIGGER’s cart stands a flagon decorated with a dragon.)

CLAUDIUS

Bottoms up, as is our custom,

Though in Scotland, I hear, theirs

It is to drink in breeks, or the breech,

As some might say. We Danes, too,

Know how to honor it often enough.

HAMLET

And more than enough.

GERTRUDE 

Thy father spoke true

When he called thee smart ass. Drink

Thy bumper and set to, for brave Laertes

awaits.

HAMLET (aside)

The king ne’er spoke so harsh a word

In my hearing.

(Hamlet and Laertes pull on gauntlets, stretch, and trade saluting flourishes with their swords.)

(Enter Ophelia, wearing a maternity dress.)

OPHELIA

Stop!

ALL

Gasp!

HORATIO

Panic not! Here is no spirit.

OPHELIA

Yes, it’s me, I’m fine, I got pregnant, had a big fight with Hamlet, shifted some assets to Switzerland, faked my own death, yada yada …

GERTRUDE

But why …?

OPHELIA

Elsinore is not exactly a wholesome place to raise children, what with the constant plots and murders. And, not to put too fine a point on it, you’re all a bunch of raving loonies. 

HAMLET

But how?

(The PLAYER gets up from the stretcher and squirms out of the shroud.)

PLAYER

I can field that one. In secret parlance

did the lady ask my aid,

Bidding me ply my trade and so, through art

Make seeming end.

(Applause)

PLAYER

Thanks, you’re really great. If ye would catch

Our newest show, we open Friday next

At Czar’s Palace in St. Pete’s — We’ll

Be there all week.

(GERTRUDE casually walks past the drinks cart and slips something furtively into the flagon.)

LAERTES

But Ophelia’s true face

I wot I saw, her lifeless hand

I held. ’Twas cold as death itself, 

Nor breath nor pulse her bosom moved.

PLAYER

For this deception, as for other comforts

That ease our Thespic nerves in idle hours

We do thank this our props guy.

Larry, come on out here.

(Enter Friar Laurence. Applause)

PLAYER

This holy friar did we meet,

When last we played Verona. He doth possess

A certain set of very special skills

Congenial to our ways, and further

He did desire, instanter, a way

Away from thence, so joined we him

To our company.

FRIAR LAURENCE

True, the general of our order

Did urge me in pursuit of other projects,

to which wish I right willingly assented …

PLAYER

Wert duly convicted for dealing drugs to teens

And corrupting the morals of under-age maids.

FRIAR LAURENCE

… so that I might spend

More time with family.

PLAYER

A powder did he give

To counterfeit death, which the lady

Taking it in her wine, those same signs

Did show. When an hour had gone,

And she aware again, her place I took

And then portrayed all mortals’ share

So well that no looker did discern.

OPHELIA

Fine, yes, great performance, spot-on, but you talk too much for a corpse. Here’s your share of the gate. Now vanish into air, the thinner, the better. As for the rest of you, what do any of you really want?

HAMLET

By incest this fiend my true place usurped,

Who should rule here by right of blood and custom.

(FRIAR LAURENCE takes his turn secretly doping the flagon.)

OPHELIA

You want to be king? You really want to rule Denmark, you who took 12 years to finish an undergraduate degree in philosophy at your safety school? You want answers? You want the truth? The whole thing was my idea. King Hamlet blew the budget with his wars, and Claudius was the only person around with management credentials. 

LAERTES

My sister sayeth as much sooth

As my tailor doth dash habbers.

Let us therefore put up our blades

And be reconciled. Let each to his own

Destiny attend, as best suits self.

OPHELIA

OK, nice, we’re making progress. Now about the sister part … Our mother grew up in the palace, she and the prince, well, yada yada … , Polonius knew what he was getting into.

CLAUDIUS

My jerk of a brother did wrong, but still

I own a heavy heart attends to deeds

I would erase from my account for Hamlet’s

Ease and mine own.

(He lays his crown and scepter on the cart next to the flagon.)

CLAUDIUS

Take them up an thou wilt.

For my part, I am for Geneva, where Anna,

My mistress dwells, and her father,

Master Chronisme, hath offered to me

The management of his sun dial factory.

HAMLET

So, Laertes, thou who wert the brother of my heart art my brother in very truth!

GERTRUDE

Ahem, well, as to that …

Know then that King Hamlet’s eye and parts

Less wholesome did rove, to the chief counsellor’s dame.

(Enter Ghost of Polonius.)

POLONIUS

And to the lady of the minister of war,

And so also to that of the ministers of agriculture and education …

GERTRUDE

And the scullery maids and stable boys …

POLONIUS

In fine, ’twas I who called this Hamlet smart ass.

Thy true father am I, and not King Hamlet as was.

GERTRUDE

It was naught serious, a fling

To get back at Hamlet for siring

Laertes, and no pleasure did I take.

POLONIUS

Hey, nisi bonum, nice bonum, thank you very much!

HAMLET

My inheritance therefore is naught but this whirlwind

Reaped from your sowing, and no kingly crown.

And so whither thou, mother, now three husbands

poorer?

GERTRUDE

Thy counsel I’ll follow, to a nunnery in Poitiers

well reputed for it’s cookery, whereat

None surpass the nuns. They it was

Who did invent the process

For forming sugar into cubes

And so sweets to the sweetest concentration Attain’d.

LAERTES

And I will take me to far-off Rus,

with this comely and loquacious cadaver,

By pretending at roles, mayhap I’ll discover

My true self, and thereafter, to Hollywood,

perchance attaining fame such as mere kings

May not. 

POLONIUS

You do look, my son, in a movie sort.

OPHELIA

And thou, late prince of this unhappy

Realm, wilt with me away?

We shall raise up this child to his low station,

And prize happiness above rich raiment. 

HAMLET

With full faith and credit do I accept

So glad a fate. The bottle and brothel both

I abjure, and henceforth of healthy stuffs only

Partake. Indeed, I will ope’ an organic store.

A purveyor of purest provender will I be, 

As well with my nostrums, sprouts and curd,

Give right respect to all persons, however mean.

(Enter the ASSISTANT, now wearing an apron and carrying a serving platter.)

HAMLET

Waiter, there! Thou filth-daub’d whoreson knave,

Lift thou that salad to my mouth.

ASSISTANT

I come to bear your Caesar, not to raise it.

OPHELIA

That’s actually a decent business model, but for god’s sake, stop alliterating.

HAMLET

Alas, then Hamlet’s Health Haven some other name

Must bear. Yet one end still loose remains:

Here is none with will nor right

To bear a crown, and of legitimate quarters 

All our arms alike are barren.

What then of Denmark?

HORATIO

Look not to me, that do value my earthly time

So high, and own skin still more higher yet.

So have I sent abroad for answer.

(Enter FORTINBRAS with soldiers.)

FORTINBRAS

No more do I desire Denmark’s cursed diadem.

Self Norway’s crown I like renounce, and honors

All do I lay down, this shining ax instead to sound.

(An AIDE DE CAMP presents a case and opens it. FORTINBRAS takes out a trumpet and plays a hot lick. Others find instruments — banjo, clarinet, tuba, bass drum, etc. — concealed in scenery and join in. Exeunt court except Hamlet and Ophelia.)

HAMLET

I regret our child cannot be king, and shall

But to commoner blood be heir. But stay!

If thy sire and mine be one, then we are sibs,

Our union curs’d and our whelp some ill-formed thing.

OPHELIA

Relax, Polonius was not my dad. Almost certainly. Anyway, the baby is Guildenstern’s. Or maybe Rosencrantz’s. I’m not really sure which.

HAMLET

What, then did'st bed them both?

OPHELIA

No.

(Exeunt HAMLET and OPHELIA.)

(Enter GRAVEDIGGER and ASSISTANT with busing trays.)

GRAVEDIGGER

So f—- ’em, say I.

ASSISTANT

Hey, look, Alfie. They left the cannoli.

GRAVEDIGGER

(Eating a cannoli) F—- the lot of ’em.

(He looks around for something to drink, sees the cart and reaches a hand toward the scepter or the flagon. Polonius watches closely.)

The End

Exit music: Louis Armstrong, “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue”