Romeo (sits writing): Father Lawrence,...

Romeo (sits writing): Father Lawrence, I am in despair. My foolish pride held a veil before my eyes, not seeing until too late the virtues and the charms of the lady Juliet. Teach me how to make amends, and bring this penitent, who has abandoned verse, and all pretence, to a happy end.

(There is a knock at the door.)

Romeo approaches the door but does not open it.

Romeo: Who is it?

Maria (with a strong country accent) Maria, your true love.

(Romeo struggles to remember who she is.)

Romeo: Madam, I am not sure I know…

Maria (with some anger): The woman with the pies.

(Recollection crosses Romeo’s face.) Ah yes.

Maria: I have come for your love, as once you said I should.

Romeo: My dear lady, I’m sorry, but my heart has quite forgotten you.

Maria (bursting open the door. She is obviously very pregnant): Well my belly hasn’t forgotten you.

Romeo: Holy mother of God.

Maria: Well, I’m not that, but in a few weeks, a mother I’ll be.

Romeo: And the child?

Maria (slaps Romeo hard across the cheek): Is yours. Don’t let your heart forget that!

Romeo: But after only one night!

Maria: Four times was plenty, from what I remember, one night or not.

Romeo: I remember some splendid pies, and a little brandy, but…

Maria: Glad to see me then?

Romeo: Well yes, but the news weighs heavy on me. I am not a rich man.

Maria: Your father is Lord Montague.

Romeo: Who has cut me off. His hopes for me are all in disarray.

Maria: In regards a lady?

Romeo: In a way, yes.

Maria: Well you have a lady now. This will do nicely.

Romeo: What will?

Maria: Staying here with you until our child is born, and then you can find a finer place than this.

Romeo: I can’t. My landlord would never allow… I mean…

Maria: Let me deal with him.

(There is a second knock at the door.)

Romeo: My dear Maria, I will afford you every comfort, in your condition, but now you must be quiet as the grave.

(He takes her by the hand, at first she is pleased, but then she sees that he is leading her towards a closet.)

Romeo: For just so long as my visitor stays, no more. (He hurries her in and closes the closet door behind her.)

Romeo (at the front door): Who goes there?

Catherine: Your one true love, Catherine.

Romeo: Catherine? I’m sorry, (through the door), I don’t quite.

Catherine: Your Kate. Your winsome Kate, your darling Kate, your Kate with the lovely eyes, your Kate with the ostrich feather bed.

Romeo (recollection dawns, along with a smile): Ah Kate, of course, what brings you to this place?

Catherine: Hearing of your broken engagement, I came to comfort you.

(He opens the door, to see a more elegant lady, obviously pregnant, but less far along than Maria.)

And you are with child. Did you find a new love so soon?

Catherine: I did not.

Romeo (with dread): Then the child?

Catherine: Is yours. I know we parted harshly, but I am ready to be reconciled. I forgive your many foibles, and your wandering eye, if you will give a steady hand, and marry me.

Romeo: Marry you!

Catherine, It was your parting wish.

Romeo: It was, but…

Catherine: But what?

Romeo: My ears still ring with the chorus of curses you poured forth as I departed. Sluggard, rascal, dog’s breath, coward, lecher, philanderer. And all because I wished a lady good morning and she smiled back a thank you.

Catherine: She slipped you a note!

Romeo: I did not slip a note to her.

Catherine: Well now you are a father, you must reign in your passions!

Romeo: My passions have already fled.

Catherine: (Look around the room.) This may do, while I am with child, then you must find a richer source of gold, and we can move to grander lodgings.

Romeo: I am a poet. Speak not to me of gold.

Catherine: How much silver, then, does poetry afford?

Romeo: Not a unicorn’s breath of dust.

Catherine: Well that will not suffice. My mother needs a larger room than this.

Romeo: Your mother!

(There is another knock at the door.)

Catherine: That might be her now, dear lady.

Romeo: But if it is not, I wish to keep this love a gentle whisper, until the world is ready for our great discovery.

(Romeo opens a trunk and gestures for Catherine to get inside it. She points at the closet.) Catherine: Surely, I see a more congenial abode.

Romeo: It is full.

Catherine: In truth?

(Romeo nods vigorously.)

Catherine: Very well, but if it is my mother knocking at your door, you must make clear the reason why I am sequestered in this tiny prison.

(Catherine climbs inside the trunk and Romeo gently closes the lid.)

Romeo (going to the front door.): Who knocks so gently in the dead of night?

Rosaline: It is I, the lady Rosaline.

Romeo: Rosaline! Perhaps another time, it is passing late.

Rosaline: Your welcome was not always quite so cold. Hearing of your broken marriage plans…

Romeo (opens the door slowly): Come in.

(Rosaline enters and gives Romeo a peck on the cheek.)

Rosaline: To your poet’s inner sanctum! Did you write immortal lines today?

Romeo: There were many interruptions. Are you with child?

Rosaline (surprised): How did you surmise?

Romeo: It is just that sort of day.

Rosaline: After that troubled loving night, I know I banished you from my bed, but just that once seems to have surpassed my expectations.

Romeo: As it did mine.

Rosaline: Well, you’ve long lamented that. But it is what it is, I thought that I might stay with you, to silence wagging tongues, and then make this house anew. You would be free to love as you wish, and so would I, if that pleases you.

Romeo: But not with you.

Rosaline: Quite so. Swimming upstream can be so exhausting.

(There is a loud insistent knock at the door.)

Romeo (jumping out of his skin): Mother of Catherine!

Rosaline: Is that some new oath?

Romeo (barely pulling himself together): Dear, honest Rosaline. This new joy comes tangled with astonishment. In short, I am amazed. I know not who knocks at the gate, but for fear of gossip, and for your sake, please stand behind this heavy drapery.

Rosaline: Oh, very well. But wouldn’t that closet be more agreeable.

Romeo: No.

Rosaline: Or this chest?

(Romeo shakes his head vigorously and leads her behind the tapestry, throwing a cushion over her protruding shoes.)

Romeo: Who goes there?

Father Lawrence: Father Lawrence. Surely you know me from my honest knock.

Romeo (opening the door): It has been a day filled with wonders.

Father Lawrence: Not another lady?

Romeo (whispering): Three.

Father Lawrence: My vow of chastity brings me some discomfort but much peace.

Romeo (whispering): And each here secreted silent in my room.

Romeo (whispering even quieter): And everyone, soon to be the mother of my child.

Father Lawrence (puzzled): The same child?

Romeo (shaking his head): One each.

Father Lawrence: Holy Saint Francis.

Romeo: And all intent to marry Romeo.

Father Lawrence: Do I know the ladies?

Romeo: Maria, Kate and Rosaline.

Father Lawrence: Have I not warned? Have I not pleaded? Have I not chastised?

(Romeo nods penitently.)

Father Lawrence: And which lady is it that you love, and say not all?

Romeo: The lady Juliet, that is soon to be married to the Prince.

Father Lawrence: The very one you spurned so vilely in front of all her kith and kin.

Romeo: I am proud of none of it.

Father Lawrence: In ancient times, when Alexander came to the Gordian knot, he took out his sword and hacked it in twain. He went on to capture much of Asia. Instead, you have tied it around your neck in pretty bows, and all these ladies will now conquer you.

Romeo: Is there no escape, no penitence to absolve me of my sins, no holy vow of chastity?

Father Lawrence: Methinks it is a trifle late for that.

Romeo: Then Juliet is lost.

Father Lawrence: And Romeo.

Romeo: Then death itself must be my release.

Father Lawrence (having an idea): Romeo must die. But Dromio might live.

Romeo: Dromio, Dromio? What manner of creature is a Dromio?

Father Lawrence: A beast to carry your burden, if you will play the story well.

Romeo: I will.

Father Lawrence: In a dark corner of Verona’s walls, is the sunken grotto of an old apothecary. His wizened frame carries dark secrets from a bygone time. Ask of him, for three pieces of gold, an ancient potion, that once taken, Dissembles death, slowing pulse and graying skin, and carrying poor sinners, even to the gates of hell.

This very night, you must take a draft, and leave a note, despairing of your sins. In the morning, all is found, and your seeming death will carry you to the icy tomb in which your ancestors await your company.

At your destruction, these three ladies, will all cry out in grief, forgiving your transgressions, as saintly memory clouds the many sleights and hurts that you have done them.

Each will return to their own family, distraught, but unclasped by Romeo’s dead hand, and free to marry otherwise, as do the honestly bereaved.

Then, I will send a fellow friar, to Mantua, whence another potion may be had to undo the cursed first affliction. With him returned, I will come to your tomb, on the fourth day, and you will be reborn, not as Romeo, but as Dromio.

Romeo: But who is Dromio?

Father Lawrence: Dromio, is your twin brother, lost off the coast of Naples in a shipwreck, when just six months old. Once feared drowned, but by this miracle now he lives.

Romeo: I knew none of this.

Father Lawrence: You still have much to learn, my son.

But Dromio will be honest, where you were sly, kind, where you were cruel, loyal where you were fickle, strong where you were weak, vigorous where you were idle, and no longer a burden on your family.

Romeo: Enough! Dromio sounds like a perfectly worthy friar, but never one to win a lady’s heart.

Father Lawrence: Dromio may comfort the ladies for their loss, and help raise their children, as any doting uncle might, whilst also being free to love the Lady Juliet.

Romeo: There is still the Prince.

Father Lawrence: That is yours to mend. Three miracles should be enough for one day’s work. Now tell me, do you not like my plan?

Romeo: Like it? Your stratagem is riven with paths to easy death. What if the potion brings an end to life, not just its semblance? What if the tomb, too tightly sealed, drowns out my meager breath? What if there is no other potion to undo the first? Or the second Friar goes not, or going, does not return. What if the Mantuan potion comes too late, and merely adds a dribble to my lips, or waking, I remember not who I am, nor why I live. And after all that, what if I am an imperfect Dromio.? This dark deception will anger more than Cupid’s overflowing cup. And worst of all, what if Juliet fails to love me? All will be despair.

Father Lawrence: Or come and live with me, as a hermit in the woods. I will use taught ropes to gird your loins – and bound them fast with vows of chastity.

Romeo (wincing): For love, I will hazard death. To find Juliet, I must lose myself.

Father Lawrence: There’s my good son. Come now, for we must prepare many things.

Romeo (pointing to the three hiding places): But what of them?

Father Lawrence: Tread softly, and be gentle with the door.

(Romeo and Father Lawrence leave. After a few moments of silence, all three women come out from their hiding spot and see each other, pregnant as they are.)

Maria, Catherine and Rosaline together: Oh!

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