Voices from the Past Part 129

Then the s.h.i.+pwreck followed.

It was pleasant to invent without pressure: I wanted a lively yet serene play, with a mixture of philosophy, humor and fantasy: I wanted a play to fit the new mode, free of symbolism.

I walked about my garden and my peace trees, and there, over there was Caliban, a savage slave; I took another turn, and there was Ariel; I heard the wind blow hollowly across an uninhabited island...

"Safely in harbor is the king's s.h.i.+p; in the deep nook where once you called me at midnight... Go, make yourself a nymph of the sea... Where should this music be? In the air, or the earth? Delicate Ariel, sea nymphs ring the knell...in the dark backward and abysm of time..."

Discs of spinning yellow, pink, lavender:

A hundred Kemps are jigging,

each in yellow clown suit,

grinning, clowning, enroute to the Globe.

Kemp jigs onto the stage:

Applause.

Home

S

o it went...

As I left the Globe, near the end of a play, I found Will Kemp, slumped on the steps, by the street, head on his arms, sobbing: he would never clown for us again: he said he was too old, that he embarra.s.sed us, that times had changed: as I stood beside him, he glanced away.

I had watched him a hundred times and thought him better than Summers, or any clown: Kemp was legend, for jig and bawdy tale, for the laugh at the end of the play.

Londoners flocked to see him-had flocked to see him for years.

His make-up streaked by the rain, his yellow suit soaked, he tottered to his feet, as if drunk. Last summer he had danced his way across country, from place to place, enthusiastically received by villagers and townsmen-carried aloft on their shoulders.

His wrinkled face was drunken-lined, s.h.i.+ning in the rain. He yanked his hat lower: was he remembering his fustian scenes, hard-drinking, quarrelling? He was famous for his winnings at primero-stubby, rock-muscled, little, knotted-he wavered, seemed about to collapse.

The play was over and the theatre crowd vomited out and milled around Kemp, encircled him, caught him up, hoisted him and bore him, through the streets, howling, cheering: KEMP...KEMP...KEMP!

Home

A number of years before we dismissed Kemp at the Globe, I visited him at his Thames River home-a home in the Sir Walter style. Kemp's carriage brought me. I strolled about his extensive garden for a few luxurious moments, viewing the river below, thinking how well it paid to invest in land and play primero. His doormen showed me in, for I had been invited to dinner.

Mrs. Kemp, dressed in pale green, came toward me, to greet me, a charming young woman: like a clap of thunder, Kemp came at her, caned her, lashed her with fierce blows, and dragged her to her room. I didn't wait for an explanation of his violence...

I do my best on the pot and think of my s.e.x and think I'll be rotting soon, and I hear pegs moving in the beams, and I hear old time and new time-outside the church bells strike. Outside of what?

Henley Street

Stratford

February 8, 1616

Why do I write?

All day Ann has sat by the windows, embroidering, soak- ing sun, her rheumatic fingers paining her, her silence and disdain evident.

Her stooped shoulders anger me because they remind me of my age, and I rant at time's disdain and irreparable devastations: a plague on time's house, a plague on mine- sickly wife and sickly husband.

Egypt-it is well you aren't here, to be contorted, cheated, frailed or paunched. To nourish an illusion is hard and grows harder through the years. The only wisdom is the quiet heart, born of the smile of heaven, seeking nature, not the wild sea of conscience.

But that is for the wise! Today, there is no Orpheus.

The trees are not our sanctuary. The seas don't hang their heads; I hang mine. Where's the lute, the player? I travel round and round the dial, to Ellen and the cloak, the fog and loneliest of men. Time should cure all, they say. But time-as I see time-does not oblige.