Yorick's Return

I’m the guy with the black trench coat and the half face mask who’s famous line:

“You must pay the rent!” adorned so many peep shows, medicine bits and arcade parlor skits that

the passé face schtick became the ridiculous—finally wangling into cartoon history as Snidely

Whiplash sans mask.

           That sad persona was pitted against an equally absurd buffoon nemesis/hero, Dudley Do-

Right in the early days of kid vid. If that were not enough, a filmic comedy followed. Dudley

should have worn a full face mask to protect the identity of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Double chin or not, I wish he had killed me, or I him. Then came redemption.

One fine day at the testing lab, a bug got loose and spit its venom across the world. The trench coat and mask, now white, got a new face. Matrix meets Covid scenario. To be honest, the genuine show stoppers were those plague doctors with the big nose masks in the late medieval period. Writers of the time called it “The Great Mortality.” The doctors more counters than curers. And so, at 66 and unemployed, I took their cue and turned the mask thing into a hit play, “Mask of the Near Dead.”  

Here’s the opening:

“So you wear that thing with the enormous nose everywhere?” said the kid across the street, who always wants to mow my lawn right after I do it myself.

“Yeah, it’s my life line against those solar panel roof guys and other peddlers who can’t read the sign ‘No solicitors.’”

“What’s a solicitor?”

“Forget it, kid. Go away. I have lines to memorize for Shakespeare’s Hamlet and I only have a week before the opening.”

“Wow, you’re an actor?”

“Yeah, and I gotta go.”

Slamming the door and looking at the mirror on the other side only reminds me that Yorick, the resurrected skull of a court jester Hamlet met in his youth, is how I get to lie down on stage and revive the good old days in a solo performance.

(Conversation: I play both Hamlet and Yorick, the jester. Curtain never raised, I come out front and lie down facing the ceiling.)

“Hammy, you remember the time we were dining and your father had that choking incident?”

“Vaguely.”

“And how I jumped on his back as he lay there convulsing and he blew his cookies.”

(Me doing the same.)                                                                                                        

“So?”

“And everyone started laughing and falling all over themselves. And you, serious and smug, said:

“What’s so funny? He could have died.”

And I said: “In Act 1, Scene 5, he will. Relax.”

“Aren’t you dead, Yorick?”

“I should say. Holding up one’s own brainless skull in dire times is feat enough.”

“Indeed.”

“A dark one at that. How my head ended up separated from my body is another story. But at least I ended up as the most existential prop in dramatic history.”

“Yes, I know.” said Hamlet. “When were you not smiling?”

“Oh, come on, just because human skulls have become the most clichéd symbol since

then, doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun. Besides, the mask over my eye sockets adds to the

mystery: which Yorick is it?”

           “Oh, will you stop? Dead people, parts or whole, don’t need props. A mask is so pedestrian.”

           “You think so, huh? Too bad you won’t endure with your princely attire, the way I will. A mask does more than hide, it reveals.”

           “How banal, Yorick.” (Lifting a copy of my own skull skyward.)

           “I can name ten other masked actors who get the glory (or infamy) just by wearing a mask.”

           “Five will be enough, jester.”

           “Let me step behind the curtain for a moment.”

           (Reappearing with a black hood having eyeholes.)

           “Ta-da.”

           “And who is that?”

           “Come on Hammy. Just because I’m not loping heads today.”

           “Oh yeah, the executioner.”

           “Right. And you should see him in the wrestling ring. Once a disguise, now a delight. But never mind. Watch this.”

           (Disappearing and reappearing from behind the curtain.)

           “What’s with the red and blue suit and the weird veins on your face?”

           “Clue. I can swing from one building to the next with sticky string shot from my palms.”

           “What?”

           “Time’s up. Spiderman. A quiet dude who fights crime after hours. He suffers from an arachnoidal genetic disorder.”

           “Sounds like a future problem.”

           “It is. Ok, here’s one that’s easy. Very big for a guy named George Lucas.”

           “Should I know him?”

           “More twentieth century, probably not. Clue: he needs the mask to breathe. Imagine that. The latest plague seems to make it harder to breathe with a mask than without. Come on, take a shot.”

           “Satan?”

           “Close. It’s Darth Vader: a mean cuss who went over to the dark side long ago.”

           “How long?”

           “Before the Fall.”

           “I see. How many do we have to go?”

           “Just two more.”

           “Thrilling. Could we have two that are more universal, like the muses Melpomene and Thalia?

           “Oh, tragedy and comedy? Sure.”

           “I’m ready.”

           “Here goes.”

           (I quickly don a black-and-white striped shirt and white pants. White face with black features, alternating between smiling and scowling.)

           “Looks like a white-faced clown. Punchinello?”

           (Yorick gesturing silence with finger to lips.)

           “Silence. A mute clown?”

           (Affirmative and negative nodding. Arms outstretched, palms up.)

           “Happy and sad. Let’s see. Feste, Twelfth Night.”

           “No. Later.”

           “I’m stumped.”

           “Marcel Marceau.”

           “Who the devil is that?”

           “Greatest mime of his time. Twentieth century. Saved countless children’s lives in the Second World War by his facial expressions alone. He imagined visiting five prison camps.”

           “Dreadful.”

           “He said the air was so cold, so foul, that everyone wore a mask, even the guards.”

           “Foul again, Yorick. How would I, Hamlet, know such things? Your last must be of all ages. Agreed?”

           “Agreed. Here goes.”

(Still white-faced, I take on a long, drawn, wide eyed expression, hands pressing hard against my cheeks. Standing at the edge of the stage, I let out my loudest scream.)

“Fear itself. It has to be.”

“Yes! Based on a painting by Edvard Munch, titled ‘The Scream.’”

“Your century, again?”

“Ours. Everyone’s. Just one way of showing it.”

“Fear is everyman at some time. There’s no hiding it.”

“Interesting side note about Munch, Hammy. Years later, he wrote a tiny note in pencil in the upper left-hand corner of the painting.”

“What’d it say?”

“Can only have been painted by a madman.”

“I’d like to see it.”

“It’s in Oslo, Norway.”

“Great.”

“So what’s next, Hammy?”   

           “Enough of this foolishness. Let’s go for a walk in the light. Get a bite. Remember that old saying?”

           “Which one?” said Yorick.

           “Two heads are better than one.”

           “With or without a mask?”

           “You choose.”