Thursday, January 7, 2010

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski


Someone ACTUALLY did this


And by actually did "this" I mean someone actually Shakesperized the entirity of The Big Lebowski and if I'm not mistaken....this someone is also planning on putting the show up in New York. That's just...that's time consuming, man. Bless your heart, Adam Bertocci.

Here's a snippet,

[An artist’s studio. Enter THE KNAVE and MAUDE]

MAUDE
If by my art, my curious friend, I have
Put the wild notions in a roar, so be’t.
What think you on the female form, O Knave?
The woman’s part in me so gallantly
Manifests itself within in mine art
Commended by the wise as country work;
I paint only those of my own sex.
The very word is said to bother men,
Discomfort them, encircled in their ring.
It is the very painting of discomfort,
Two legs without a head. I say no thing.

THE KNAVE
I take no awkward pause, nor balk nor stare,
But only ask, askance, what art this is.
I see no ring to mar if I would kiss’t,
But only oily painting I might stain.
The Knave deciphers nothing in its image;
Thy work has made a nihilist of me.

MAUDE
In faith, the art is only what you will,
And if the word can poison not your ear
Then you’re in luck; some men of lesser stuff
Dislike to hear it, dare not speak its name.
Whereas without a flicker of his eye
A man might speak of King Richard the Third,
Or pose an idle sonnet on his rod,
Or praise the wit of his selfsame Johnson.

THE KNAVE
As Benjamin Jonson, lady?

MAUDE
Let us speak plain and to the purpose. My father bade you take the rug, but that you chose was, in faith, a gift of me to my departed mother, the happiest gift that ever marquess gave, and thus not his to make a rich and precious gift of. But trifles, trifles; let us speak of this supposed kidnapping. It hath the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.

THE KNAVE
Permit me to explain about the rug—

MAUDE
What cares have you, Lebowski, upon love?

THE KNAVE
Alack, lady, thy question does me vex.

MAUDE
The physicality of making love;
I’d have you tell me if you like it well.
A myth persists on women of my stripe,
That our body politic renders us in hate
Of acts of love; a most injurious lie.
The enterprise can have in it much zest.
But men who walk with satyrs in the morn
And women swimming nightly ‘twixt the nymphs
Are punished by Oberon for sin
And do the deed compulsively engaged,
Sans joy, sans love, sans everything.

THE KNAVE
Prithee nay!

MAUDE
So damn’d a soul is Bonnie; I have heard
That lustful creatures sitting at a play
Have by the cunning language of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim’d their infatuations.
I’ve had these players make their show for you;
Suiting the action to the word indeed.
It shall be called “Log Jamming”, because
It hath bared bottom; but hark—the players.
So please your grace, the Prologue is addressed.
To read the whole play, give a click here.

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