The Libertine (NHB Modern Plays)

2016 edition

Stephen Jeffreys

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781780014647
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

'I am up for it. All the time. That's not a boast. Or an opinion. It is bone-hard medical fact.'

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Charismatic poet, playwright and rake with a legendary appetite for excess. Yet when a chance encounter with an actress at the Playhouse sends him reeling, he is forced to reconsider everything he thinks and feels.

With all the wit, flair and bawdiness of a Restoration comedy, Stephen Jeffreys' brilliant play is an incisive critique of life in an age of excess.

Originally performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1994, The Libertine has been staged around the world, was adapted for radio, and became a film. This edition of the play was published alongside the 2016 production at the Theatre Royal Bath and Theatre Royal Haymarket, directed by Terry Johnson and starring Dominic Cooper as Wilmot.

Prologue

Lights up. ROCHESTER comes forward.

ROCHESTER. Allow me to be frank at the commencement: you will not like me. No, I say you will not. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on. Oh yes, I shall do things you will like. You will say ‘That was a noble impulse in him’ or ‘He played a brave part there’, but DO NOT WARM TO ME, it will not serve. When I become a BIT OF ACHARMER that is your danger sign for it prefaces the change into THE FULL REPTILE a few seconds later. What I require is not your affection but your attention. I must not be ignored or you will find me as troublesome a package of humanity as ever pissed into the Thames. Now. Ladies. An announcement. (Looks around.) I am up for it. All the time. That’s not a boast. Or an opinion. It is bone-hard medical fact. I put it around, d’y’know? And you will watch me putting it around and sigh for it. Don’t. It is a deal of trouble for you and you are better off watching and drawing your conclusions from a distance than you would be if I got my tarse pointing up your petticoats. Gentlemen. (Looks around.) Do not despair, I am up for that as well. When the mood is on me. And the same warning applies. Now, gents: if there be vizards in the house, jades, harlots (as how could there not be) leave them be for the moment. Still your cheesy erections till I have had my say. But later when you shag – and later you will shag, I shall expect it of you and I will know if you have let me down – I wish you to shag with my homuncular image rattling in your gonads. Feel how it was for me, how it is for me and ponder. ‘Was that shudder the same shudder he sensed? Did he know something more profound? Or is there some wall of wretchedness that we all batter with our heads at that shining, livelong moment?’ That is it. That is my prologue, nothing in rhyme, certainly no protestations of modesty, you were not expecting that, I trust. I reiterate only for those who have arrived late or were buying oranges or were simply not listening: I am John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester and I do not want you to like me.

ROCHESTER goes. Lights come up on Scene One.

Scene One – Coffee

WILL’s coffee house. ETHEREGE and SACKVILLE sit over coffee at a long wooden table. Each has a pile of pages from a manuscript in front of him. It is a pirated copy of Dryden’s latest play. They rustle and pick their way through it like scavengers. At another table, JANE sits staring into space.

ETHEREGE. Any good bits yet?

SACKVILLE. Couldn’t write a laundry list.

ETHEREGE. Good bits or bad bits, sound the alarm.

SACKVILLE. Couldn’t write the menu at Lockett’s.

ETHEREGE. Be fair, the menu at Lockett’s isn’t posted up in rhymed couplets.

SACKVILLE. And Dryden’s supposed to be the Laureate.

ETHEREGE (rummaging). Good bits, bad bits.

SACKVILLE (stopping). I don’t believe this.

ETHEREGE. Bad bit?

SACKVILLE. Tom’s not really going to put this on, is he?

ETHEREGE. He put the last one on, what was it called?

SACKVILLE. Amboyna.

DOWNS, a fresh-faced young man, comes in nervously.

ETHEREGE. Billy!

SACKVILLE. Amboyna. A propagandist tragedy in blank verse.

ETHEREGE. Billy, join us. Coffee ho!

SACKVILLE. Put more people off fighting for their country than the invention of chain shot.

ETHEREGE. Billy Downs, this is Charles Sackville –

DOWNS (overawed). My lord, I am obliged to –

ETHEREGE. – Lord Buckhurst, Earl of Dorset.

SACKVILLE. And Middlesex.

ETHEREGE. And Middlesex –

SACKVILLE. You left out poxy Middlesex.

ETHEREGE. His Earlship is touchy this morning –

SACKVILLE. It’s a big county.

ETHEREGE. We’ve got the original copy of Dryden’s new play.

SACKVILLE. Friendly actor.

ETHEREGE. Here, have a wadge. Good bits and bad bits, that’s what we’re after.

ETHEREGE doles out a helping of the play to DOWNS,then notices JANE.

(To JANE.) Madam. We are living through a golden age of the Arts and Sciences. Your grandchildren will want you to have partaken. You can’t just sit there cleaning the gubbins out of your ears. Have some of this. (Doles out pages.) Act Four. Find a good bit, find a bad bit, give us a ‘Hola’.

JANE. How do I tell the difference?

ETHEREGE. These days everyone’s a critic. No training required.

JANE. Can’t read much.

ETHEREGE. Look at the shape. It tends to be bad when the characters start conversing in ten-line slabs.

DOWNS. Doesn’t Mr Dryden come in here sometimes?

ETHEREGE. That’s the point. We find the good bits and the bad bits, knock up a quick parody and have it circulating the tables when he makes his entrance this afternoon.

MRS WILL UFTON comes in with dishes of coffee.

MRS WILL. Coffee, gents.

SACKVILLE. Excuse me, Mr D...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Production
• Introduction
• Dedication
• Characters
• Author's Note
• The Libertine
• Music
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information