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MSND [slowplay]

The sets are up, the house lights are dimmed, and the play is ready to begin.

[Actual production will be SP'd here. There will be an audience post tomorrow night, so the audience can react to what's going on onstage then. Have fun, go nuts, guys. Chat room is: MSND, but I have school and won't be on until tonight or so. Outline. Please use the scripts you were emailed. Important: ~~DO NOT SKIP AHEAD IN THE PRODUCTION. THERE ARE EVENTS PLANNED~~ OKAY I LIED. Please just post Acts I-III for right now, as there is something planned to happen at the end of Act III. Please just check in on this post to check for a cue.]

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Xander's body mocked a shudder. "Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in--God shield us!--a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to look to 't."

Clearly Shakespeare never met the Fandom Island ducks came floating faintly up into Niall's consciousness, and he grinned, then covered his mouth with his hand and shushed the boy.

"Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion," Snout said, playing along.

Bottom shook his head, the metal in his ear catching the stagelights and bouncing light across the floor. "Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck: and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect," Here Niall frowned, for these words did not come trippingly off the tongue.

Below his blanket of green silence, Xander stirred and poked at him. Lemme. Awkward and dorky, I can do. And they are my lines. I should get to say some of 'em.

Play no games with it, boy, Niall warned him, but cautiously let the mortal rise to the surface for a moment.

"--'Ladies,'--or 'Fair-ladies--I would wish You,'--or 'I would request you,'--or 'I would entreat you,--not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours." The stammer was natural; the foolish babble poured out easily from Xander's mouth. "If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are."

There Niall cut the boy off, after the line that would have been a lie had he spoken it himself, and picked up the smoother portion of the tale. "And there indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner."

My thanks, youngling. Well-spoken. Or badly, as the case may be.

Puck leaned toward them and mused, "What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here, so near the cradle of the fairy queen? What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor; an actor too, perhaps, if I see cause." How dare they come so near his queen? Even if she had angered Oberon, was she not still Titania? They must be punished.

Don't you dare!

Peace, little human. It's no more than the script calls for.

"Must I speak now?" Jack said.

"Ay, marry, mutht you; for you mutht underthtand he goeth but to thee a noithe that he heard, and ith to come again," Pip responded.

The amount of spit flying off the stage into the audience at this point is staggering. By all known laws of physics, there should not be that much spit in a human mouth.

Jack struck an attitude of girliness (Not too hard in Pip's view. It was a suprise that some of the more "flippant" folk didn't pick him! All they saw was a pretty face!) and spoke his line.

"Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew, As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,
I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb. "

"'Ninuth' tomb,' man: why, you mutht not thpeak that yet; that you anthwer to Pyramuth: you thpeak all your part at onthe, cueth and all Pyramuth enter: your cue is patht; it ith, 'never tire.'"

As the line continued, Pip's voice grew louder, his motions more frantic as he settled into a full on furious rant. In the name of the Shaper, what was wrong with fairies these days? And humans! They used to be smarter!

Near the end of the line, Pip's accent has become so strong that the last parts were completely incomprehensible. This only added to the saliva spewing forth from his mouth, now covering the stage with a disgusting layer of spit.

Sometime before the spittle got waist-deep, Niall had allowed the Puck to lead him away, as written. Oberon's favorite he might be, but Niall had no quarrel with him this night, and more to the point, no desire to end now in words or blows the path that was to lead to the arms of his queen, ere the night was over.

Now, he let Robin push him back into the mock-clearing, a configuration of leather straps around his head like unto a horse's halter - or more accurately, that of an ass, with long gray feather-ears sticking up from it on either side.

"O Bottom, thou art changed!" Snout said on cue, wiping spit from her costume with a roll of her eyes. "What do I see on thee?"

Bottom, all unknowing, did not reach to touch his ass' ears, though Niall's fingers twitched. "What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do you?"

A look of what might have been fear but was more likely disgust crossed Pip's face.

Still, lines were lines, and directions were directions. With a yelp, Pip ran off stage, the other mechanicals following in mock panic.

Waiting until the company had exited, Titania stretched luxuriously on her couch, then murmured, "What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?"

She turned to look at Niall, and stifled a smile at the contraption on his head, then let her expression go gleaming and speculative with glee. She swung one long leg over the edge of the couch, and straightened, one arm draped along the back of the black settee.

There was no music set for this; the one in Xander's head seemed to be shared with a martial tune that involved feathers in a cap and something called 'macaroni' that incited the urge to snicker in his host body even though Niall knew not the gist of the joke.

He sang it to another tune, low, old, and plaintive. Those who had ears to hear beyond the daily sounds of man might stare a little harder at the stage, he supposed, but from the surprise in Xander's mind, Niall suspected they'd be staring just as hard at him singing anything in tune at all. The voice was nasal, hardly strong, but it would do for the purpose.

He moved toward his queen, and by the end of the song, he knelt at the foot of her lounge.

"I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again." Titania curled her fingers around his jaw, and trailed the backs of her nails along his throat, smiling in glee.

This is Xander! Xan. DER. Cut it out! Stop being flirty and sexy at him!An image of another youth in her host's mind, who had sung this song, and been amply rewarded for his time, only for the child to flee. And stop looking at what I'm thinking!

Do you hush, then, and I shall not witness. Or stay to taunt, and suffer the consequences.

Titania lowered her voice, but made sure it still carried out to the audience as she growled, lounging forward to toy with one of the costume's ears. "Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note; So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape." And attractive it was, with Niall putting the boy through his paces, and matching the seeming to the substance. "And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee."

And would, before the end of the night.

Not with my body you don't! Another flash, of that other boy, and a gathering rage.

Impatient, Titania sent a sharp reproof. No. But by our leave, and of our will, not through your protests. Do save your energy for this our play.

"Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that," Niall answered her, ducking his head to meet the touch of her fingers on his face, as Bottom would never, sadly, reach for his Queen. And true, his voice had not been quite the sweetest of the sweet.

"And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days."

Oh boy did we ever say a mouthful there came from Xander, and Niall let it pass, as it was nothing that had not strayed through his own thoughts time untold.

"The more the pity that some honest neighbours will not make them friends."

There, perhaps, was Bottom's one moment of unfoolishness, and yet Niall, looking on his queen in the body of this girl-child, could not help but think reason ought best stay a stranger, tonight.

"Nay, I can gleek--" He couldn't help looking offstage after the departed players, at that, and biting back a laugh. "--upon occasion."

Titania was lounging on her stomach now, the better to play with the donkey-face, and she too smiled in the direction of the missing players. Kissing the words to Niall, pouting out each syllable, she rose to her feet, trailing her hand along his shoulders, smiling as she traced patterns over the leather vest, and slowly drew him to his feet.

"Out of this wood do not desire to go:
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no."

She pushed him down upon the lounge, and stalked around the couch, her fingers never leaving his hair, the costume, or his shoulders, for more than a second.

"I am a spirit of no common rate;
The summer still doth tend upon my state."

The girl -- Parker--was yelling again: my lines! I worked on this, please, please let me do this! Titania tossed her head, and to silence the girl, let her say the words.

"And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee."

She was thinking again of the other mortal, her voice coaxing and seductive, warmer than Titania would have it, but perhaps a good choice. "And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep--" Gifts given, over and over, time and again: a pet, a room, a keychain, a kiss.

"And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
and I will purge thy mortal grossness so
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go."

Titania took control again, letting the dulcet tones trail away as she reassumed command, and curled into Niall's young body, hooking one leg behind him, and reaching up a hand to hold him in place as she pressed herself to his side, then called for her retinue.

"Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!"

Let Oberon be watching, and make of this what he will. Or if not, then she would tell him later, what sport he missed.

Peaseblossom staggers onto the stage as if shoved. Her wings are askew and her hair is coming down. She turns around and glares back into the wings before straightening up and adjusting her wings. She waits for the other fairies to enter.

Cobweb and Moth enter giggling and stand next to Peaseblossom.

"NOT MUSTARDSEED!" someone yells from offstage.

A second later, Quinn comes out all twirly and fairy-like, so they can all say their line: "Where shall we go?"

Of course, Quinn is the loudest and most dramatic. There may be a hand held up to her forehead.

One of the fairies before her was not of her court. Titania gave that one a hard look, still stroking Niall's head, then launched into her speech.

"Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes."

She allowed Parker her voice again, to say the next part, since she seemed determined to scream if Titania did not.

"Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,"

No, we never were that small or tiny. Shakespeare was a fabulist, not a historian. How foolish are you?

I wondered, that's all!

"To have my love to bed and to arise--" A kiss on Niall's cheek, soft but lingering, in memory of the one the girl gave her friend, "--And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes: Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies."

Titania lolled her head against Niall's shoulder, silencing laughter that bubbled up at Parker's spluttering.

A hand on his mistress' hair; that he might have without giving the game away, and that Niall did, before turning to address the fairy attendants.

"I pray you," he said to Peaseblossom, "commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more acquaintance too."

And then the one that acted oddly, the girl who was none of theirs. "Your name, I beseech you, sir."

And how strange the time that's passed, that a stage once full of men playing at girls was now filled with fairies playing at mortals playing at fairies, and here was Niall an Glas calling a human girl 'sir.'

Quinn? Not too pleased at being called 'sir.' She is clearly a girl, thankyouverymuch.

"PRINCESS VIOLET BUTTERCUP," she says, loud and proud and NOT Mustardseed!

Titania glared at the girl. Violet Buttercup indeed.

Parker was laughing. Go, Quinn!

We shall remember that name...

And do nothing. Suck it up, Your Majesty.

Another, warning glare, and a warning tap of long, sharp fingernails upon Niall's chest, as if to scratch out someone's heart.

In Niall's head, Xander was laughing like a hyena. Eerily like a hyena, in fact. Nyall pressed his ips together to avoid his own smile, given Titania's displeasure, but undoubtedly something slipped through in his voice as he said kindly,

"Good...Princess Buttercup, I know your sunny disposition well; full many of your sisters have I seen dancing in the meadow of a lazy morning. I desire your more acquaintance, good Princess Buttercup."

Quinn does know her script very well, but given the way everyone's acting, and the line, she has to ask, "Are you hitting on me?" before the lights fade to blue to signal the change of scene.

As the lights fade, Peaseblossom stomps forward and grabs Quinn by the arm to drag her off stage with the other fairies.

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MSND [slowplay]

Re: ACT III, Scene I

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