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Rochester: You are one of life's understudies!
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Harris: [calls to him onstage] My lord!
Rochester: I asked for no interruption.
Harris: My suit is one of the utmost urgency: the stage direction at the end of this scene requires, in my opinion, some authorial exposition.
Rochester: It seems straightforward enough.
Harris: Yes, um,
[reading from the script]
Harris: "Then dance six naked men and women, the men doing obedience to the women's cunts, kissing and touching them often, the women in like manner to the men's pricks, kissing and dandling their cods and then fall to fucking, after which the women sigh and the men look simple and so sneak off." The end of the second act.
Rochester: A strong scene, an eminently playable scene, and though I say it myself, a climactic one.
Harris: And w-will the kind of equipment that that young lady has in her hand
[a large wooden dildo]
Harris: be available for gentlemen for... strapping around the middle for the execution of this scene?
Rochester: I had not envisioned you to be so encumbered; I feel this scene should be given... in the flesh.
Harris: And will we give... two performances on the day?
Rochester: No, Mr. Harris.
Harris: [relieved] I am glad to hear that from the author.
Rochester: With the dress rehearsal, the court performance and the public showing, I envisage three.
Harris: Right; I don't know if you've met my regular understudy, Mr. Lightman, he's a most dependable fellow.
Rochester: Sir, you have the honour of playing *my* understudy.
Harris: [cross] Well, I shall take this opportunity to withdraw from the engagement.
[he leaves]
Rochester: [calls after him angrily] You are one of *life's* understudies!
Shane MacGowan
Extended Reading
