Rescripting: The End

Following a burst of creative energy, I have finished rescripting—or at least, I’ve finished a draft. More work may yet follow.

It seems my second act is much shorter than my first. Mind you, that estimate may be misleading, since the second half of the play contains more violence, both onstage and off, and that tends to add to the running time. I have an idea for the “offstage war” which is alluded to in Act 5, Scene 2 (“Alarum and retreat within”): a silent sequence of soldiers crossing on and off the stage, missing each other in the fog of war. This would be a neat reflection of the storm, which I also imagine will feature characters just missing one another as they enter and exit.

The very last lines of the play are a point of contention, because they are ascribed to different characters in different versions. In the Quarto, Albany speaks these lines, whereas in the Folio, it’s Edgar:

The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say:
The oldest have borne most, we that are young,
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

I decided to go with the Folio, because, in my version, Edgar also has the last speech before the intermission. I don’t know if anyone will remember, or bother to make that connection, but I like the symmetry of it.