My Excellent Good Friends

My Excellent Good Friends

By Andy Heidel

Preface

This edition of My Excellent Good Friends is based upon the one and only performance of Hamlet: 1990. Author, unknown. Original cast, also unknown. While the original folio was lost, a lone audio recording from the wings was saved and painstakingly transcribed. However, the recording ends abruptly after the riots began during Act III. SC III. This is the only known representation of what occurred that fateful night in the late spring of 2007 at the South Boston Community College Theatre for the Blind. The recording, along with a half burned playbill that also served as a $10 coupon to the Orange Julius Ceaser at Faneuil Hall, are all that remain. All attempts to gain more information from the police, or the community college, regarding the incidents on the night of the performance, the author, or performers, have been denied.

Regarding the title

In act II scene II  Hamlet greets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and refers to them as “My excellent good friends.” However, it could be construed that calling someone “excellent good” is a double positive which cancels out the compliment. From the first encounter, Hamlet is remarking that his friends are duplicitous.

[Dramatis Personae.

King, club owner.

Hamlet, nephew to the owner.

Polonius, investor in the club.

Rosencrantz, fanboy.

Guildenstern, barfly.

Gertrude, co-owner of the club, mother to Hamlet.

Ophelia, daughter to Polonius.

Players

Scene: El Señor Night Club.]

[On stage, heard but unseen, is Hamlet.]

Ham.  [on stage.] To be, or not to be…

[Rhythmic drums and fife play]

[Backstage, in the wings, are Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Gertrude and Ophelia.]

Ros. Why did he think this soliloquy needed to be a rap battle?

Guil. This version of Hamlet is set in the 90’s.

Oph. In a South Boston club. 

Gert. And rap battles were really popular then.

Ros. Makes sense, I guess. But the rap battle is against himself.

Guil. He is, and he is not, two sides of the same coin.

Ros. If this play were set in Canada, that coin would be a Loonie.

Guil. Well played, if only we were at a casino.

Ham.  [on stage.]  Perchance to dream.

Gert. He’s brilliant!

Guil. You’re just saying that because you’re sleeping with him.

Ham.  [on stage.] There’s the rub!

Guil. Sounds like an edible complex if you ask me.

Ros. Don’t you mean Oedipal complex?

Guil. Yes, that’s it, Oedipal!  Gertrude is his mother, after all.

Gert. I only play his mother on stage.

Ham. [on stage] The undiscovered country.

Ros. OMG that was the WORST Star Trek movie.

Guil. You’re thinking of The Final Frontier.

Ros. Oh, yeah. The one with the space-god monster and Spock’s half-brother.

Guil. The Undiscovered Country featured Christopher Plummer as a Klingon who liked to recite Shakespeare.

Ros. Oh, he’s the one that said: “You haven’t experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.

Guil. That’s the one. It’s like everyone wants to name a movie after a famous line from a Shakespeare play.

Ros. Infinite Jest.

Guil. All the World’s a Stage.

Ros. Exit, Pursued by a Bear.

Guil. Once More into the Breach.

Ros. North by Northwest.

Ros. Band of Brothers.

Guil. Brave New World.

Ros. The Fault in Our Stars.

Guil. In Cold Blood.

Ros. The Sound and the Fury.

Guil. This Mortal Coil.

Ros. Wyrd Sisters.

Guil. By the Pricking of my Thumbs.

Ros. Something Wicked this Way Comes.

Gert. Are you two mad?

Ros. Funny farm mad?

Guil. Or angry mad?

Gert. You can’t recite Macbeth backstage in a theatre.

Ros. Actually, you’re not supposed to say his name.

Guil. Who’s name?

Ros. Macbeth, evidently it’s bad luck or something.

Gert. You two are idiots.

Oph. Will you three shut up about your Macbeth method of madness? I’m waiting for my cue.

Ham.  [on stage.]  Soft you now!

Oph. I’m on. [Exeunt Ophelia.]

Ros. Did you see LOTR?

Gert. What?

Guil. The Lord of the Rings.

Ros. Remember when Gollum and Smeagol argued about The Precious?

Gert. He had a conundrum whether to follow his true self or give into the dark power of the ring.

Guil. He should have won an award!

Ros. We’ll, that’s the Hamlet problem.

Guil. Not winning an award or trying to kill hobbits?

Ros. Forget LOTR! Back to Hamlet.  He’s indecisive, but he’s also mad.

Guil. Is The Precious his mother, Ophelia, the throne, or avenging his dead father?

Ros. It’s all four.

Ham. [on stage.] Get thee to a nunnery!

Gert. His voice really projects when he’s mad.

Guil. Funny farm mad, or angry mad?

Gert & Ros. Both.

[Enter King and Polonius.]

King. Where are we?

Guil. We’re in the wings.

Pol. In the play, my boy. Where are we in the play?

Guil. Hamlet just told Ophelia to get to the convent.

Ros. Nunnery. 

Pol. What’s the difference?

Ros. One has three syllables and rhymes with thee.

Guil. The other is more accurate but doesn’t fit the metre.

King. The first or second mention of the nunnery?

Gert. The third.

Pol. Just enough time for a snort.

[Pololious pulls a flask from his coat, drinks, hands to the King]

King. Or two.

Oph. [on stage.] Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me…

[Exeunt King and Polonius]

King. [On stage] Love!

Ros. King always forgets that love is a question, not an exclamation.

Guil. There are times when you shout it from the rooftops. Then it’s an exclamation!

Ros. You are one to talk.

Guil. Why is that?

Ros. You never question, my love.

Guil. I may not ask many questions, but I do not question your love.

Ros. Players?

Guil. Player, I’m no player.

Ros. The players are on stage. We’re almost on. What’s funny is Hamlet is playing the players to incite the king.

Guil. Incite or recite?

Ros. Both it seems based upon his machiavellian machinations.

Guil. Those are some big machinations.

Ros. Mmmmm. Big Mac. Now I’m hungry.

Ham. [On stage] Come some music.

Ros. That’s our cue.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]