Marino Faliero: Out of the Closet

MARINO FALIERO:

out of the Closet and into the

FIRE!

CAST

Lord Byron

Fletcher

William Bankes

Teresa Guiccioli

Pietro Gamba

Fanny - a Maid

Father Spoonelii

Officer Bravosi

SCENE 1

Ravenna, 1820 - William Bankes is sojourning at the Palazzo Guiccioli

WB: Hoy!! (hurls boot at stray peacock) mind there, Byron - your feathered miscreant appears to be roosting in an old MS of some sort

B: Santo dio! (Moretto the bulldog gangs up on peacock) Fletcher!!

Fanny(curtseys): Signor Fletcher is cleaning your gunpowder, milord - you want to eat the bird?

B: What? - no, I am not a cannibal, except it be upon Fridays - here, hang my drama er - il mio dramma, si? - up to dry

WB: A drama! (grabs same) - ‘pon my soul! finally! - it has long been wished that you would save the English stage from burlesque, buffoonery and brigandage!

B: Nay, Bankes - 'twas but for the closet - Murray is under notice to dispense law-bills to that effect in the House (grinds jaw) - we shall see if he obeys - that shuffling, timorous, book-selling louse!

WB: Kinnaird and his rascals at Drury Lane will care not what laws are laid - if it has your name - it will be played

TG peeps around door

TG: Oh! scusami amore mio (glares at F) - at eight? Papa will be out, si?

B: Eight - as always - il mio tesoro (TG hauls F from salon) - I wish you to recollect one thing, Bankes (confiding) - I never wrote nor copied an entire Scene of that play without being obliged to break off - to break a commandment - to obey a woman’s - and to forget God’s

WB(chortles): That can but assist the unities! (button-holes a peacock feather) - one hopes such draining interruptions upon your heart and brain - to say nothing of your nethers - did not also drain the life from your poesy

B: I assure you, the lady always apologised for any interruption (sighs) - but you know the answer a man must make when and while he can (inhales fine Turkish tobacco, slumps) - I happened to be left only one hour in the four and twenty for composition or reading and I was obliged to divide even that, as my crow has been unwell(crow whimpers)

WB(reads MS): There is a lack of sensationalism and love interest - and - what? - a beheaded Doge!! (flips to the juicy bits) nay, we have discovered a new vein in your genius! - the Doge is admirably portrayed - his wife perfectly original and beautiful - oons! 'tis monstrously fine

B: Vastly kind of you Bankes - but if it appears on the stage - be damned if I'll claim it's mine!

B waits for the clock to relieve his anxieties - WB reads, and smokes

SCENE 2

Despite an injunction from the Lord Chancellor, Drury Lane stages MF

B(reading ‘Il Courieri'): Satan's toes!! (foaming) my Doge has been hauled on stage! which shameless imp of our acquaintance - with scant fear of the Law - will own it?

WB: If it's Kinnaird, he has damnably lied himself into a lockjaw this time

B: Kinnaird?!(birds squawk) Fanny! - feed those birds (F misunderstands) - dio Fanny - stop nibbling those seeds! (to WB) I have it on Shelley's authority they're quite the narcotic! Fanny! - er, gli uccelli (points)

Fanny: Si milord (begrudgingly feeds birds)

B: Sink me! - look here (waves paper) the play succeeded - some say - (reads further) but The Times - quotha -“a cold reception" - “ill-becoming comical finale" - I shall have someone's head for this - whomever the liar!

WB: It's been cut and slashed by three quarters, I'll wager - and a crookéd Chancellor has let its blood and quenched its fire

B is drained of rage

B: I am astonished, yea, mortified Bankes - 1stly. I have certainly failed in the drama - 2ndly. my Dama has verbotened The Don (paces and ponders) aye, 'tis settled - to Venezuela I must go! - I shall set up a colony - Fletcher shall be used for breeding - all I desire is to preserve the remains of my House - and what remains of my Name - I shall regret nothing - but my Fame

WB: Now, now Byron - gather thyself ! perchance the casting was off - why, the poor man is cracked from tips and falls - to be sure, you would not begrudge an old favourite a few scraps for his retirement?

B(scowls): Kean? - Edmund Kean? - did The Bard verily wreck havoc on his bones?

WB: Kean? - not at all, he will one day make a hit in the Doge, but at present the little rogue is making thousands in America - Madame Vestri has been busy with Scrope - Macready said he'd rather turn Papish than play one - (reading) no, 'tis but your old comrade in jest, Grimaldi

B: Joe Grimaldi! (grabs WB's ‘Posta del Mattino') damn their eyes! - a clown - albeit one of genius - playing my Doge?!

WB: A savvy piece of casting (nods in admiration) - feelings are running high after Cato Street and whatnot - management thought to lighten the public mood somewhat in the last act - (roars) - didn't Joe contrive to hide his skull beneath the cassock - then - the decapitation - gasps - blood and horror - 'ere fainting and strife - when out from the lifeless cassock pops our Joe in all his grease-painted glory - swinging his sausages and duck - ends by singing ‘Death to the Pope'

Fanny(drops birdseed): L'inglese milord has killed the Pope?! (runs out screaming “le nobile Inglese has killed our Pope" - birds escape)

Teresa runs into salon

TG: Mio Byron!! What is Fanny saying - you have killed the Pope? When did you kill the Pope? (wails) we can never marry now - why oh why - if you had assassination on your mind - did you not gizzard Alessandro, mio odious husband?!

Pietro runs into salon

PG: Milord! Fanny is prostrate before the Blessed Virgin in the portico - who has decapitated our Pope?

B: Teresa - Pietro - to my knowledge the Pope is alive and well and attending his mistresses with exceptional devotion

WB: Calmo! Amici - there has been a misunderstanding - (thinks) or, perchance, a seed-induced phantasy - 'twas naught but a contraband performance on a London stage - of a play - a fiction - by his Lordship

PG: You are writing plays of homicide? - on the Holy Father? Why Byron, the Count's spies and favoured police officers are but waiting for an excuse to expel you from Ravenna, appropriate your gunpowder - and confine myself and my sisters to the convent! - ah! dio!

Fanny returns, nibbling birdseed

B: Fie on it!! - no Pope has been decapitated - 'twas but the Doge - Faliero - from the good old times

TG: The Doge! - but that's even worse! - we shall never see the inside of a gondola again!

Fanny: The Doge! - you have murdered our Doge as well! (revisits the Blessed Virgin - thence onto Ravenna's boulevards to spread the shocking news)

SCENE 3

Officer Bravosi lustily knocks on the salon door - Fletcher answers

F: Officer Bravosi - have you come to inspect our gunpowder? I can tell you - we have none - not even in the cellar OB: No, you peasant - gunpowder, what? - no, I require milord - immediately!

F: His lordship and his crow have headaches - besides, coppers require an appointment to visit his Palazzo

OB: His! ha! - move, inglese - admit me immediately(barges in)

B(sighing): What do you want Bravosi? - my day has already been somewhat exasperating

OB: It's all about town - milord - that you have been brazenly boasting of the assassination of our Pope, Grimaldi the XII

B: Signora Fanny is - at present - somewhat deranged from ingesting noxious substances, Bravosi (sneers) - 'tis I who am the victim of a crime - perpetrated in my own land! - by my own ragamuffins (rattles bird cage) Sweet mother of Divine!! to think I am the target of odium here! - oh, Bravosi - the irony of such a reprimand

OB: There are other rumours - less easy to credit - that you have also assassinated the Doge

B: The Doge? - yes, of course (sits and reflects on his actions) - that may less difficult to answer

OB(shocked): You admit it to be so?!

B: I find it difficult to account for my actions at nine years of age - was I in Venice? or did his excellency die under the hand of Bonaparte?

WB: Yea - he did - in 1797! (both chortle)

Father Spoonelli enters salon in high dudgeon

FS: What is this - this sciocchezze nonsense I hear about the slaughter of our Pope? Have we not enough tumult betwixt the charcoal-burners and the starving flocks of domesticated bird-life?!! (rummages) - here - today's encyclical from the Vatican, signed by himself, look (points) - apologising to the Austrians for taxing bratwurst

OB: But our source told all! - the signora Fanny - why she came flying into the station and threw herself into a cell, spinning straw and blankets into quite a comfortable sleeping arrangement (checks notes) - oh! she is now lodged in a Pine tree

FS: You see, Spoonelli - in your rash desire to see our nobile Inglese fled - who hangs his tapestries without fail (bows deeply) - you have failed to notice 'tis your informant alone who has quite lost her head

B: Be damned if it's she - and not your Pope - my inept, idiota investigator - Bravosi!!

FS: Nor the Doge (rolls eyes)

Spoonelli drags Bravosi out - bows and doffs berretta to B

B: Humph! by the time I put Kinnaird, the Lord Chancellor - and signora Fanny - to the wall..

WB: T'will seem Faliero had the kindest cut of all!

B whistles for his birds - Fanny is heard falling from pine tree

END

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