INTERMISSION
(Backstage with the players)
"Pocket, you rascal, you've trapped me in a comedy."
"Well, for some, it is, yes."
"When I saw the ghost I thought tragedy was assured."
"Aye, there's always a bloody ghost in a tragedy."
"But the mistaken identity, the vulgarity, the lightness of theme and paucity of ideas, surely it's a comedy. I'm not dressed for comedy, I'm all in black."
"As am I, yet here we are."
"So it is a comedy."
"A black comedy - "
"I knew it."
"For me, anyway."
"Tragedy, then?"
"Bloody ghost is foreshadowing, innit?"
"But all the gratuitous shagging and tossing?"
"Brilliant misdirection."
"You're having me on."
"Sorry, no, it's pikeman's surprise for you in the next scene."
"I'm slain then?"
"To the great satisfaction of the audience."
"Oh bugger!"
"But there's good news, too."
"Yes?"
"It remains a comedy for me."
"God, you're an annoying little git."
"Hate the play, not the player, mate. Here, let me hold the curtain for you. Do you have any plans for that silver dagger? After you're gone, I mean."
"A bloody comedy - "
"Tragedies always end with tragedy, Edmund, but life goes on, doesn't it? The winter of our discontent turns inevitably to the spring of new adventure. Again, not for you."
~ Christopher Moore, Fool
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