Will and his siblings run to their father’s shop to see
traveling players interviewed by Mayor John Shakespeare.
The drum and fife stopped. The lead player knocked on the door. John beckoned Will to open it. Gil jumped out of the way, as two men swept in, one a gore bellied man with a wide-nostriled, purple-veined nose, full red lips and a bass voice. The other was an angular, younger man who looked as though his Adam’s apple was indeed an apple.
The fat man wore a scarlet cape and a feathered slouch hat at a rakish angle, which he plucked off with a bow. “Your honorable Lord Mayor, we ask your kind and generous favor and license to play for citizens of this fair town for a sum of your discretion. We ask to play on May Day and pray the young people of the town will let us use the maypole they fetch from the wood. We will assist in decoration, of course.”
The skinny one’s Adam’s apple agitated like a spindle as he seconded in a pleasing alto, “Your Honour, we will make merry on the stage and lift spirits.”
“On high, we will lift them,” said the fat man introducing himself as Frothingham and his partner as Vegetarius.
Will bounced on his heels and stifled a laugh when he heard the names. I could never make up names like those, Vegetarius? Frothingham? How now Roly-Poly and Beanpole round the maypole, or Pudding Belly and Scarecrow, or Ham-bone and Bare-bone, or . . .
“Young man who bounceth, what is your name.”
“Will Shakespeare, sire.”
“Ah, the Lord Mayor’s son, “Why do you peep?” And as the player stroked his estimable corporation, “Can you not speak from the diaphragm?”
Will came back with, “I can move stones and open doors with my voice,” in a fair imitation of Frothingham’s delivery and business. The player’s paunch shook with laughter, and Joan giggled from her perch on a stack of hides.
“Pray, Lord Bailiff, our young player is laid with the ague. We seek a lad to step up. Could your handsome son Will play with us if he wishes? He has the cheek and wit of one who could carry a scene, if he could learn his part.
John Shakespeare said, “Will forgets nothing and invents as needed. You will be pleased.”
‘Why should I write this down, that’s riveted,
Screwed to my memory?’
Excerpted from Discovering Will’s Lost Years and the Marlowe-Shakespeare Lost Play: Uncovering 16th and 21st-Century Mystery, Treachery and Obsession. You can read further and learn how Will performed when he appeared onstage with the troupe.
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