I haven’t had much time to post as of late. As some of you are aware, I am currently in rehearsal for The Tempest and so have been busy with rehearsal. It’s been about 3 years since I last stepped onstage and, as usual, I am reminded how much I miss it. Our cast is mixed in talent and experience so the production will have it’s bright spots and not so bright spots. However, we have a very competent and talented director and our Prospero is excellent. It also helps me that he is a long-time friend and occasional visitor to our too infrequent home-games.
Somehow I managed to meld poker and the play when working on the script over the weekend. When I have a particularly tricky scene to manage, I will break it out into what are called ‘beats’ (not bad ones, just ‘beats’) – it’s a way of identifying moments of change or import, whether they be subtextual, orchestral, or to help clarify intent, etc. When working with Shakespeare’s text, this technique is especially helpful.
Rather than my usual shorthand for scoring a script, I found myself thinking in poker terms with the following scene. This is early in the play and establishes Prospero’s hold over Ariel (my character). Ariel attempts to stand up to Prospero, reminding him he promised to set her free after she had served him for a year (okay, for you Shakespeare purists out there, Ariel, indeed, was written as a male character, and a young one at that…. our production is a “concept” – the character has been morphed into an older female…. it works, trust me). Prospero quashes this stand quite effectively.
The scoring of that section went something like this (imagine a game of 7card stud):
For a transaltion - lol - go here.
-------------SHUFFLE UP AND DEAL-------------
ARIEL
Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,
Which is not yet perform'd me.
PROSPERO
-------------THIRD STREET-------------
How now? moody?
What is't thou canst demand?
ARIEL -------------BET-------------
My liberty.
PROSPERO -------------RAISE-------------
Before the time be out? no more!
ARIEL -------------RE-RAISE-------------
I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service;
Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served
Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.
PROSPERO-------------CALL-------------
Dost thou forget
-------------FOURTH STREET-------------From
what a torment I did free thee?
ARIEL -------------BET-------------
No.
PROSPERO -------------CALL-------------
Thou dost, -------------FIFTH
STREET-------------and think'st it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt deep,
To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
To do me business in the veins o' the earth
When it is baked with frost.
ARIEL -------------BET-------------
I do not, sir.
PROSPERO -------------RAISE-------------
Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?
ARIEL
No, sir.
PROSPERO
Thou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me.
ARIEL -------------CALL-------------
Sir, in Argier.
PROSPERO
-------------SIXTH STREET-------------
O, was she so? -------------ARIEL
CHECKS-------------I must
Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,
Thou know'st, was banish'd: for one thing she did
They would not take her life. -------------BET-------------Is
not this true?
ARIEL -------------CALL-------------
Ay, sir.
PROSPERO
-------------SEVENTH STREET-------------
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child
And here was left by the sailors. -------------ARIEL
CHECKS-------------Thou, my slave,
As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain
A dozen years; within which space she died
And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans
As fast as mill-wheels strike. …………
…………. -------------BET-------------it
was mine art,
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.
ARIEL -------------RAISE-------------
I thank thee, master.
PROSPERO -------------RE-RAISE ALL-IN-------------
If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak
And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
ARIEL -------------FOLD-------------
Pardon, master;
I will be correspondent to command
And do my spiriting gently.
PROSPERO -------------RAKES THE POT IN-------------
Do so, and after two days
I will discharge thee.
And, finally, I offer to you my favorite line in the play. Whip this out the next time some sea-bass re-raises you all-in when you’re holding the nuts:
…..the elements,
Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowle that's in my plume!
CALL!
