Dear Doctor,

I have Read your Play

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 Cast

John Murray II – Publisher

Dr. John Polidori – Gifted medic, aspiring scribbler

Lord Byron – Ex-pat Genius

(P & B = offstage voices)

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​SCENE 1

 

1817, Albemarle Street - the saloon of Murray’s publishing house

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​JM(slices open a large packet of letters): Och, how I dread that seal! (rips with a flourish) - will I look? (he looks) - either I’ve scored yet another cracking poem for the ladies - or an order for toothpaste! - what am I - his mother? (looks up at portrait of B) - by God, with all his faults, I love my boy still!

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Murray sits, Byron’s voice reads

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B: My dear Moray - firstly, I cannot thank you, in truth, for the diarist with which you provided me - never have you parted with £500 so inefficiently. Do you know how many Covent Garden strumpets you can get for that?

​​JM (furrowed): Guineas or pounds? Guineas or pounds?

​B: Re. said diarist, Dr. Polidori - he has talents, sir, and is a good-natured man at heart - on the downside - his aspirations do not match his talents. Now, to do me a favour - in lieu of the fortune I have made you - for it far exceeds my own - be a good man and read his play? It fairly purges the eyes and moves the bowels - so read it before breakfast - and write him an encouraging letter

​​JM: What do I know about plays? Cookbooks, aye, travelling guides, aye, no not aye!! - YES! - must shake off that tradesman’s giveaway! - poesy, on a hunch, yes - but the STAGE!! - och!

​B: He is currently ranging barefoot through Milan, or perchance is incarcerated. One of my travelling fellow elites will ensure its safe delivery - Addio - go on and prosper! B.

​​​JM: A letter of encouragement? - mmm, I will have to wing it (drops his pince-nez) - plagiary is my only chance - but who? - or is it whom? - what do I know? I only count the money! - och

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Prowls office, stiffens back

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JM: Zounds!! I shall refer solely to my Lord! - why, if a Lord can charm the Devil - be damned if an Up and Coming Gentleman Publisher shouldn’t charm an unemployable medical man!

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Hurls Polidori’s play and the ‘Collected Works of the Hon. Lord Byron’ onto his desk​​​

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​SCENE 2

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Murray is reclining on a sofa, a medic attends

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JM(pale and groaning): By the ghost of Burns! - oh! - my shatter’d nerves and quicken’d pulses, that Polidori’s catastrophe has me convulséd - oh! here comes another flux of grief

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Is ill

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P: Well! - they all - even my Mary (bites knuckle) Mary! - upon whom I devolved the secrets of subcuticular surgical stitching! - laughed at me and my brilliant skull-headed-lady play in Geneva! - well! - now Murray will most certainly print, nay produce, this play - and they shall never laugh again! (muses) - unless I write a comedy, which could work - after all - I have had fantastic, shoeless adventures in which I played all the lead roles really superbly

JM: Sweet mother of divine! (adjusts pillows, reads) What trash! - what a misuse of lumber! - although I grant I like his moral and machinery; his plot, too, has such scope for scenery: his dialogue is apt and smart: the play’s concoction is full of art - a bit too much raving and crying between the hero and heroine though - oh wait! they stab, and die! that will save on scenery - I like it!

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Medic departs

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P: Come to think on it - no one will be going to the theatre in the future - a three-volume novel is more suited to my genius - (furrows and paces) ideas, ideas!

JM: To compose: “Dear Doctor, I have read your play. Sorry, sir, but I cannot deal, Unless ’twere acted by O’Neill” (gasps in wonder) does that RHYME?! - “My hands so full, my head so busy, I’m almost dead and always dizzy” - by the pharaoh’s foot! I have a GIFT! - “And so, with endless truth and hurry, Dear Doctor, I am yours, John Murray” - BOOM!!

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Murray high-fives himself and lights cigar​

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​SCENE 3

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P: I wonder did his Lordship leave anything of value in the bin? - be just like him to expect his cleaners to clean up his mess - mmm - I’m not completely convinced by Murray’s letter - damn me if it was written by a fellow Scot - there’s an awful waste of ink - am I being quizzed?!

JM: It is not that I am insensible to merits in themselves ostensible - but damn me if I never noticed my own gifts! - why do I need authors? - to afford hysterical relief? - that great oaf Sotheby, with his ‘Orestes’ - has lain so very long on hand, that I despair of all demand! (is in wonder at himself) - sink me if I’m not at it again!

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Murray performs a sprightly highland fling around the saloon

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B: PS. I’ve sent you, folded in a letter, a sort of - it’s no more a drama than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama - so alter’d since last year my pen is, I think I’ve lost my wits at Venice. Y’s B. - (PPS - stop asking me for letters to show at your councils - or pay me for them at least - they are quite as precious a species of poesy as my other scribbles) Y’s B.xxx

JM: Humph! - wits! - drain'd your brains away as stallion to some dark-eyed and warm Italian! - aye, I don’t doubt! - no matter, Byron, I shall leave you to your Adriatic nymphs! - as we are now fellow warblers, I feel comfortable dropping the ‘my Lord’ and other salutes to rank - and I can pick up where you, poetically, left off - perhaps shift focus somewhat towards the Admiralty (muses) what rhymes with ‘admiralty’, mmm - devil of a job this - ‘spaghetti’? - nay, I don’t think that works - I’ll pick up my Byron to consult (doubts emerge) - well, dash it anyway!!

P: I grieve to speak it, but plays are drugs, mere drugs now-a-days - 3rd module, year 2 - passed deucedly well, I must say - I’ll not bother with Murray’s insults - to the fire with you, figlio di puttana!!!

JM(refocuses): This play is not the thing - what else does the good doctor have? I should not like to discourage any man within an eavesdropping distance of his Lordship (finds rough copy of a novel) - maybe this will do - the ladies will thrill to a handsome devil in need of regular transfusions - now, back to my poetic effusions (ponders and struggles)

P: My vampyre is complete - and it’s quite the piece for publication - now, for a title (frowns) author (frowns harder) - forsooth, I’m probably owed back-pay anyway - (swoops down from library ladder) - eternal fame is mine - all mine!!

JM: Would Polidori notice his Lordship’s name on the title-page? - mmm - they’re well-ensconced in Italy - and the Italians, pfft! they shan’t be able to distinguish - to a man they are unable to grasp the King’s English

P: Now I can meet that grey-eyed aristocrat on his own turf!! - heh - must make haste with the pistol practice, however (P rushes to rifle range)

JM(has pondered): Aye, this should be a bestseller amongst our increasingly deep-pocketed suburbanites - perhaps, after all, I am a better hand at the trade - (sighs) in truth, I quite enjoy a room full of wits and bards, Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards - and others - neither bards nor wits - for my humble tenement admits all persons in the dress of gent, from Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent - without having to cross verbal swords with them. Aye, I’ll go no more a poesying, ‘twill not benefit my purse - and be damned to it! - ‘tis a curse!!​​

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END