The Provok’d Beaux
Scene 1: Covent Garden
(enter Sir John Bastard)
SIR JOHN: Pox o’ this ageing carcass! Once yeasty and built like a brick shipyard, tis now only fit to attract maggots and carrion like a cow’s flop in flytime. Speaking of which, plague take this interfering Lady Bountiful! Five years widowed, yet not a day but that she hasn’t pursued me, pestering for marriage. Here she comes now. God’s teeth, I barely have to mention the sow but the bacon is on the hoof.
(enter Lady Bountiful with Fräulein Fokker)
LADY B: Look Fräulein, tis my beau. Watch and learn how fond lovers pay court in England. Good morrow, Sir John.
SIR JOHN: Oink oink madam.
LADY B: Ha ha ha! You see how he joshes me, Fräulein? Sir John, may I present my new companion from Germany? Fräulein Fokker (giggles), this is Sir John Bastard.
SIR J: Fokker ye say? (giggles)
LADY B: Aye, Fokker. (giggles)
FRÄULEIN: Ach Sir John, Sie sind ein nob, ja?
SIR JOHN: Pox clap ye, woman, what d’ye mean by that?
FRÄULEIN: Ein nob, ein aristocrat.
SIR JOHN: I am a gentleman, madam, plague take your hunnish guts.
LADY B: Dear Fräulein Fokker (giggles)! You must forgive her, Sir John, she did but arrive with the chaise this morning.
SIR JOHN: Indeed, madam? Then I trust the harness didn’t chafe her withers o’ermuch?
LADY B: Ha ha ha! Heavens Sir John, you make me split my sides, strap me backwards if ye don’t. Will you not come and take tea at Liberty Hall this afternoon, the better to split m’ daughters likewise?
SIR JOHN: (aside) Tea with the daughters, egad? Pox, they are two of the prettiest plump pullets in God’s farmyard. And I am not so foundered yet that I have forgotten quite how to pluck. (aloud) Madam, if thy daughters crave a tickling then I am your tool. I shall come this afternoon (aside) see if I don’t! (aloud) Your servant, ladies. (exit)
LADY B: What think ye to him, Fräulein? Is he not a veritable beast of a man?
FRÄULEIN: I sink he is ein Arschloch, gnädige Frau.
LADY B: Why, you Fritzes have such a pretty virile vocabulary, to be sure, it never ceases to stimulate me. I can see we are going to be great friends, Fräulein Fokker (giggles).
FRÄULEIN: (aside, reading from a phrase book) ‘Grate – to grind, or rub ze wronk vay.’ (aloud) Ja, I sink ve be great friends inteed, madam.
LADY B: Ha ha ha!
(exeunt)
Scene 2: Liberty Hall
(enter Faith and Charity)
FAITH: So Charity, now you have reached the age of consent, we must find you someone suitable to consent to. Tell me, what think ye to men in general?
CHARITY: Faith, they give me the willies, sister.
FAITH: Tis true, they would give all girls willies, if we but let ’em.
CHARITY: Ha ha ha! (aside) What does the lady mean?
FAITH: However, let you and me keep our hearts to ourselves for just a little longer, Charity, for I’m sure the gallants do enjoy the pleasures of the chase just as much as we.
CHARITY: Aye, for once cornered i’ the thicket of matrimony, our harts, I wager, would not remain deer for long.
FAITH: Ha ha ha! Faith, what a gift for the visual pun you have which works even better when tis written down.
CHARITY: No Faith, I’m Charity, you’re Faith.
FAITH: Faith, Charity, y’are right. I think. Ha ha ha!
CHARITY: Ha ha ha!
FAITH: I own I am so preoccupied of late by contemplation of my doting beau that I am quite out of myself.
CHARITY: Then let us hope this beau of yours has arrows to match his ardour.
FAITH: Arrows, sister?
CHARITY: Why, with which to prick ye!
FAITH: Ha ha ha! I warrant what prick he has is already a-quiver with desire for me.
CHARITY: Aye, and his hunting horn raised ready to be blown!
FAITH: I would lay to that!
CHARITY: And we might even get a shag! Ha ha ha!
FAITH: Shag? Oh, shag, right. Ha ha ha!
CHARITY: Ha ha ha!
(pause)
BOTH: Ha ha ha!
(pause)
FAITH: Know you, sister, I am tempted to invite my lord Cocksure and his friend Gaylord to a rendezvous, where we may meet ’em and so tweak their beards a little.
CHARITY: An excellent good design i’faith, Faith, whereby we might secretly measure the true extent of their soft attachments.
FAITH: Let us hope their attachments stay not too soft lest the –
CHARITY: Enough already.
FAITH: Yeah, whatever. I shall write the letter post haste.
CHARITY: Whilst I go fetch a ruler.
FAITH: Ha ha ha!
CHARITY: Ha ha ha!
(pause)
BOTH: Ha ha ha!
(exeunt)
Scene 3: Piccadilly
(enter Cocksure)
COCK: What the plague ails me? Pox? Aye, could be. A full se’night without sleep and not a one of ’em spent in m’ own bed. Scurvy on these town fillies for so taking advantage of my generous nature!
(enter GAYLORD)
GAY: Morrow, Cocksure. Up betimes I see.
COCK: (looks down at himself) Zounds, is it? Tis but force of habit, twill pass off in a wink.
GAY: Faith, thy wit, Cocksure, is like thy purse, never out of thy breeches.
COCK: Ha ha ha!
GAY: Now look you, hast thou seen Lady Bountiful’s new Hunnish companion?
COCK: Indeed, but methinks I didn’t catch her name aright.
GAY: Fokker (giggles).
COCK: Not yet, but tis a notion that boasts promise.
GAY: Ha ha ha! (pause) How so?
COCK: Look you Ned, I have been musing of late how our very appellations seem to catch the reflections of our characters like quicksilver. Take yon doughty knight Sir John, as great a bastard by nature as by name. I myself, since christened Cocksure, have suited the action to the word at every opportunity. If my theory be correct then thy handle too must redound to thy humour like a great bell echoing in a belfry.
GAY: Nay, pox, there’s no relation i’faith, what cock you do talk, Cocksure, to be sure. Pox on’t.
(enter BLADE with a letter)
BLADE: Letter for Mr Gaylord.
GAY: Thank you, heart. Oh I love what you’ve done with your peruke.
BLADE: Thank you, sir. (backs out carefully)
COCK: Well Ned, what missive does the rusty Blade bring us?
GAY: It says, ‘We are two lusty young wenches who would like to meet you in Finsbury Park Pleasure Gardens this afternoon, signed two lusty young wenches’.
COCK: A handsome proposition truly. Are you game?
GAY: Look, how many more times –
COCK: No, game. Odds bodikins, Ned, if this little billet from the gods don’t get ye straightened out like a shot ramrod, nought will avail.
GAY: Nay then, let’s to’t.
COCK: Come then, we’ll go pull these pert little pouters. And by these buttocks, if we ha’n’t made a man o’ ye by this evening I shall renounce my whoring ways and enter a nunnery. Or at least, a nun. Ha ha ha!
GAY: Ha ha ha!
(pause)
BOTH: Ha ha ha!
(exeunt)
Scene 4: Pall Mall
(enter Fräulein Fokker reading her phrase book)
FRÄULEIN: ‘Pox – ein affliction affecting many nobs in England. See also crabs, clap und Moby Dick.’ Ach, schön.
(enter Blade behind her. He kisses her violently)
FRÄULEIN: Was zum Teufel! Who are you?
BLADE: The name’s Blade. My friends call me ‘The Flashing’.
FRÄULEIN: Well, I don’t vant you flashink at me, sank you.
BLADE: Nay Fräulein Fokker (giggles), is there nothing I can do which might earn me a little rummage with thee?
FRÄULEIN: Ja, perhaps zere is. Explain please vy it is everybody laugh venn zay say mein name.
BLADE: Well, you know what they say, Fräulein – Fokker by name (giggles), Fokker by – (he shoves the hand up her skirt)
FRÄULEIN: Stand off, sirrah! (knees him in the groin. He falls)
BLADE: You have bruised my coccyx, you Black Forest gateau, you.
FRÄULEIN: Gut. But now I offer you a deal. If you hide me vere I can overhear my Lady Bountiful and Sir John ziss afternoon, I refuse you nussink.
BLADE: Why you kinky little voyeur you, should you like to be observed so?
FRÄULEIN: Jawohl, I like zat kind of think. Vill you do ziss?
BLADE: As easily as a Frenchman may butter his baguette. (exit FRÄULEIN) Not be a voyeur? Deutschland über Alles!
(does a flashy leap and exits)
Scene 5: Liberty Hall
(enter Faith with Cocksure, Charity with Gaylord)
CHARITY: Faith gentlemen, twas most impolite of you to see through our little imposture so soon.
COCK: Twas vain to go about it, madam, for I can gauge the proper quality of a lady as easily as a Viennese pastry cook may tell a tart from a turd.
GAY: And in this case the bun was out of the oven before ever the baker had rolled out his dough.
FAITH: Then sirs, we needs must find other amusement to beguile th’ afternoon. Mr Cocksure, would you care to see my pastels?
COCK: With all my bowels, madam. (aside to GAYLORD) A tart with an art, egad! I’m going next door and intend to be some time. You remember all I told you?
GAY: Take my weight on my elbows and above all no farting.
COCK: That’s my bully pumper!
(Cocksure exits with Faith)
GAY: (aside) What can the fellow mean?
CHARITY: Faith sir, I think you are shy of me.
GAY: Me, madam? Nonsense. (he plonks a hand on her breast and waits)
CHARITY: I think you are unpractised in the ways of wooing, sir.
GAY: Indeed madam, I vouch I am yet to be convinced of its advantages over the pleasures of interior design.
CHARITY: Then, sir, allow me to assist with your conversion.
GAY: That’s very kind, but how did you know I had plans to extend the boutique?
(enter Faith and Cocksure, running)
FAITH: For charity’s sake, Charity, put away your bosoms this instant, Sir John Bastard is hard upon us!
CHARITY: Shame and infamy, this hard will go hard with us indeed!
FAITH: (to the men) He must not find you here. Quick sirs, into the closet.
GAY: Nay, but I have only just come out of the –
CHARITY: Ssh, not a word, he is here.
(the girls push the men into the closet)
(enter Sir John)
SIR JOHN: (aside) What’s this? The two young pullets egad! And not a sign of that blithering bilebag their mother. Faith, these are two of the prettiest surprises I’ve met with all year.
FAITH: Thank you sir, but I’m sure my sister Charity’s surprises are almost as pretty.
SIR JOHN: Nay, that I shall judge for myself. If you two pigeons don’t let me play pig in your petticoats, I shall tell thy mother that you strumpet about town like a couple of whores on heat.
CHARITY: You would split on us, sir?
SIR JOHN: Split me if I don’t, madam.
FAITH: Nay then, we have no choice. Which of us would you plunder first, sir?
SIR JOHN: First? Pox, I’ll pork ye both together or bust my tripes trying.
(he pursues them about the room, pinching their bottoms)
CHARITY: Lord, why were we born so beautiful?
FAITH: Why were we born at all?
SIR J: (pausing for breath) This is no bloody use to anyone, tis no bloody use at –
BLADE: (off) This way Fräulein, mind you don’t trip over that pisspot.
FAITH: Oh stars and stripes, here comes Blade with that Teutonic trollop Fräulein Fokker! (giggles)
SIR JOHN: Pox! If we are discovered I’ll have to marry at least one of ye!
CHARITY: And our street cred will be utterly ruined!
FAITH: Quick, into the closet!
(they all make a dash for it and open the door. Cocksure and Gaylord fall out upon ’em)
SIR JOHN: Pox!
COCK: Plague!
FAITH: Oh we are in pickle!
SIR JOHN: So, you bucks, you come prancing your pimpery here do you?
COCK: Sir, you insult these ladies. I warn you my companion has a sword.
GAY: Indeed I do, sir. Tis in Cheltenham, I’ll go and fetch it.
FAITH: Lord, gentlemen, we have no time for bandying. Let us secrete ourselves or all will be up with us!
(they all squash into the closet)
(enter Blade with Fräulein Fokker)(giggles)
BLADE: We are about the time appointed.
FRÄULEIN: Iss gut. I may take down notes, ja?
BLADE: Take down anything you like, Fritz. Let us conceal ourselves in yonder closet and overhear all.
(he opens the closet door. The five inside fall out)
SIR JOHN: Pox!
COCK: Plague!
GAY: Piles!
BLADE: Parkinson’s disease!
GAY: What means this untimely intrusion, Blade?
BLADE: Sir, I was merely seeking to do this lady a favour. Or possibly, several.
SIR JOHN: You whoreson you, yon kraut bint will kibosh the whole caboodle. Come here for a whipping.
GAY: Need a hand?
(Blade shrieks. They pursue him about the room, Gaylord pinching his bottom)
LADY B: (off) Sir John, are you there, beloved?
ALL: Pox! Lady Bountiful!
(they all cram into the closet, shutting out Sir John)
SIR JOHN: Pox and pox!
(he hauls the door open. The six inside fall out. They manage to all cram themselves back inside just in time. Enter Lady Bountiful)
LADY B: Ah, he is late. I like it when a man insists on coming second, it shows such restraint. Methinks he will propose today and then I can call myself a proper Bastard at last. Oh what rapture! But first a cup of my cold gin to steady my heart. (opens closet. The seven inside fall out) What have we here?
ALL: Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.
LADY B: Chickens? Pox! Get up, the whole brood of you.
COCK: Lady Bountiful, my companion has an explanation for everything.
GAY: Yes, I left it with my sword in Cheltenham. I’ll go and –
LADY B: Pox o’ your explanations. Daughters, have any of these men attempted to trifle with you?
FAITH: Yes, mother.
CHARITY: Only it was so dark in there we couldn’t tell whose trifle it was.
LADY B: Then you must choose the two least obnoxious and marry them. Charity?
SIR JOHN: Me, me!
CHARITY: I choose Gaylord.
LADY B: On your head be it.
SIR JOHN: Pox!
LADY B: Faith?
SIR JOHN: Me, me!
FAITH: I choose Cocksure.
SIR JOHN: Pox and pox!
LADY B: And as for you, you jerry jackanapes –
SIR JOHN: Me, me!
BLADE: Him, him!
FRÄULEIN: I choose Blade.
SIR JOHN & BLADE: Pox, pox and pox!
LADY B: So be it. Now Sir John, what have you to say?
SIR JOHN: Well, pox, tis a blow but I shall take my rejection like a man and die a maid. Farewell. (tries to leave)
LADY B: Hold! Sir John, five years is a long time for a widow to go without a bit of bundle and bounce. Either you lie with me tonight as a husband, or you lie alone tomorrow as a corpse. Choose.
SIR JOHN: (aside) I would as lief choose death only I boggle at what method she might use to achieve it. (aloud) I yield, madam. Send for your parson and have done.
GAY: Nay, let me first regale the company with a song I penned just recently during our confinement in yon cupboard.
(all groan)
COCK: I wondered who the idiot was waving the quill about therein.
GAY: (sings) When first I fell to Cupid’s dart
It struck me stiff and numb,
Instead of aiming at my heart
It got me in the bum.
In monklike cell I’ve lived for years
Til love did burst the locks,
But now my song dries up my tears.
What think ye to it?
ALL: Pox!
GAY: Charming!
COCK: So let’s to church, and if it be our chance to disagree –
FAITH: Take heart and try instead adultery.
ALL: Ha ha ha!
(pause)
ALL: Ha ha ha!
(exeunt)
A piece on the production of Vanbrugh’s The Provok’d Wife which inspired this spoof can be found here.