Hey! read!, its funny!..kinda

May 31, 2002

This here is a little project I turned in for English, its a satire of Shakespearian drama and Shakespeare himself. I'll post the condensed version (or laugh-a-minute version) here. There is an "authors cut" of the script that I cut down due to considerably long "dry" spots and also in keeping with what ole' Shakespeare himself said "brevity is the soul of wit bitch."

But really, I've showed it to a select group of individuals who found it thoroughly hysterical and was curious about what the cynical wrestling "smarks" contingent thinks. Can you be impressed? We shall see.

So, without further ado...

William Shakespeare's Next Big Thing

BY: MATT HAMMITT

ACT ONE:

William Shakespeare- The Bard

Snuffaluffagus- Shakespeare's Next Big Thing

Hamlet-Son of Hamlet

Macbeth-Thane of Candor, Thane of Gleams, King of Dennison, Prince of Tides

Scene 1: The Writing Room

(SETTING: 1614. Stratford Upon Avon, William Shakespeare, quill in hand, scroll in the other pacing in a frantic woe for himself. He places the scroll on a desk and starts to write on it with the quill pen. After several arduous moments, Shakespeare crumples the scroll, gets a new one and THIS time remembers to dip his pen in the inkwell. Then he begins to ponder.)

Shakespeare: Whither art thou thine noblest of souls? No? that's not it.

Is't thou as noble as thou doth want us to accept? No? that's horrible

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the noblest of them all? Now that's just wretched!

(tearing up the piece of scroll) O! What a cruel hand I have been dealt!

Those weasel nosed, boil infested conglomerates at The Lord Chamberlain's Men have set upon me the most unholiest mandate of all. Writing my greatest of tragedies in time to have them performed before a royal court of the grandest order and I haven't even a character with which to center a play around.

Oh, is there no other worthy outlet of turmoil in this cruel world! I fear If I do little in the way of creativity than it might be increasingly likely that one might begin to realize that the only difference between Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and the rest of my slew of contemporary tragedies are the characters names.

No, it is now that I must reinvent the modern tragedy with a plot so undeterminably sadistic and depressing that for years and years teachers of the English word will insist, upon their various degrees, that there are hidden subliminal messages about atheism and creationism and also that, if the words to my various soliloquies are read backwards, a clear message that states to the world that Paul McCartney is dead. And to add to my sheer brilliance is the fact that Paul McCartney is not to be born for another three hundred and fifty years!

Alas, before I can truly mastermind a amazingly pessimistic and disconcerting plot, I must give my hero a name. For I do believe it 'twere I who said "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would still be just another useless plant."

And therefore I need not fret over conjuring up a name for my hero, I shall simply shake the Boggle cube and pick fourteen letters in a row and slur their pronunciation to create a mindlessly brilliant title that inspires a whole new generation of hippies and psychedelic drug users to give their children the stupidest names they can think up (i.e. Andromeda).

After all, it worked with Thessalonius Monk

(Shakespeare slinks off the right side of the stage and returns with a blue cube full of several smaller cubes covered on each of their sides with various letters. He shakes the cube violently with a look of mad genius in his eye. After rattling the cube for a duration extending past twenty seconds he stops and recites loud enough so the crowd and half the neighbors on the block down the street from your local auditorium can hear.)

Shakespeare: SNUFFALUFFAGUS!!

Alas, it is brilliant, Yes, my dear Snuffaluffagus, you will be my greatest creation yet, just you wait and see.

(Exit)

Scene 2: The Writing Room

(Shakespeare is bent over his table studiously working on his newest play. He stops at uneven intervals and frowns as the scroll for extended amounts of time.)

Shakespeare: A pitiful script this is. Could it be that a plague of absence of creation has befallen me? Shall I succumb to this lack of ideas and leave myself prone to punishment for my tardiness in my next manuscript?

(The curtains that hang above the windows flutter about as a gentle zephyr wind enters the room.)

Shakespeare: But alas what is this? A cold wind?

What causes this unforgiving chill to creep upon me this night? What manner of creature have I displeased that they would bring upon me such a bitter frost?

(Now Standing) Whom may I have offended that would work so fervently to detour me from my task at hand? I look to the sky and see only the ethereal glow of the stars and yet there comes a storm wind so cold it freezes me to my very core. This is not logical, not of this earth, not of this realm.

(Behind him, on the table, a candle sits to light his table on which he was formerly at work. A strong gust of wind blows the candle over where it ignites a clutter of crumpled scrolls into a blazing inferno.)

Shakespeare: (Aghast) And now a pyre is given birth before me! A luminescent flame which forbids me approach and signals for dark treaties to come.

Even more curious, I seem to be explaining the occurrences around me way too much as if something is listening just out there behind the fourth dimension. As if I am on display.

Equally as curious is the fact that in every room I go into, in fact anywhere I go there are only three walls, not only that but whenever I say something humorous there comes a bout of unanimous laughter from the dimension where the fourth wall should be. Truly the work of the devil this is!

Voice: William Shakespeare.

(Shakespeare looks back toward the fire where the voice seems to be originating from. He points to his chest and asks)

Shakespeare: (Distraught) Me?

Voice: No the William Shakespeare behind you.

(Shakespeare takes a quick look over his shoulder hoping that whatever eyes the voice belongs to doesn't seem him actually CHECK for someone else.)

Voice: Of course you genius.

Shakespeare: What do you want from me foul hellspawn, foul demon from beyond!?!

(Shakespeare falls to his knees and hides his face from the peering flame. From behind the flame enters Hamlet, holding a rolled up scroll in his hand.)

Hamlet: (In thick Cockney accent) So are ye gonna stand up o what?

Shakespeare: (Standing in awe.) Who is this that stands before me?

Hamlet: Aww c'mon gov, you can't say you don't recognize me eh? (waits for response) Eht's Me, 'Amlet.

Shakespeare: Prince Hamlet? This cannot be, I wrote you as a nobleman.

Hamlet: 'Fraid not chief.

Shakespeare: I concur, you are little more than a lowly present.

Hamlet: Funny, I never thought o meself that way.

Shakespeare: If I wrote you a nobleman, how is it that you appear to me as a lowly cockney man?

Hamlet: Well, you never asked me gov.

Shakespeare: (Infuriated) This cannot be! I created you! You are but my paranoid delusion.

Hamlet: Pardon me interruption gov, but do you really think that you have composed all of 'ese plays and sonnets all by y'self? You, my friend, are what we call a gateway man.

Shakespeare: Im afraid I do not understand.

Hamlet: Eht's simple really, there lies another dimension unseen by the eyes of man. All the legends of literature are there. Me, Macbeth. Adam, Eve, Sherlock Holmes, The Boxcar Children. It just takes an open mind to get us released from our prison and into the real world. And a quill and scroll o course.

Shakespeare: So you are saying that you escape from this 'Land of Fictional Characters' through my plays?

Hamlet: 'Tis true. Only, we have no control about how our lives play out after you put your pen to paper. And to tell the truth a couple of us are rather upset by what you have done to us via the written word.

Shakespeare: But my plays are genius?

Hamlet: Yeah sure, "To be or not ta be, that is the question" and such. But do you really have to get us stabbed all the time?

Shakespeare: I was only writing a play, it creates no intentional harm.

Hamlet: Oh yeah, tell that to Tybalt. 'E has to eat through a straw y'know.

Shakespeare: Oh what a cruel revelation this is. My brilliance all pre-orchestrated without my knowledge or approval. (Shakespeare's attention shifts to the scroll in Hamlets hand) And what document have you bought with you. A warrant for my destruction?

Hamlet: Oh this? (Holds scroll, rolled up to lips and in inflected voice) "William Shakespeare, you have angered the gods and will pay the ultimate price!" (Removes scroll) We just use it to intimidate people so that they'll listen to us. Works wonders on priests. One time I had Johnathan Edwards quacking like a duck in front of his entire congregation. In fact, the entire Puritan religion was ?err..will be my entire idea. Sinners in the hands of an angry god indeed.

(From the firey pyre that still burns behind them Macbeth stumbles forth holding a ridiculously over-sized Styrofoam cup).

Hamlet: Ah, 'ere you are, what took you so long?

Macbeth: (Wiping blue syrup from his chin) Thought I'd get a Slurpee.

Shakespeare: Slurpee? (aside) What other evils will these two wretched souls bring forth upon me?

(Macbeth and Hamlet stare at each other wondering just who in the world Shakespeare aimed that last statement at.)

Macbeth: (Shrugging it off) Anyway Bill, we came here to make sure that you don't ruin your next characters life the way you tormented ours. You see me and Hamlet met over at TLCA.

Shakespeare: TLCA?

Hamlet: Tragic Lead Characters Anonymous. It's a support group for characters who received a bum wrap on the page. We stopped going after Arthur Dimmesdale kept on about being afraid of Red Neon signs with the letter A on them. "Well then stop eating at Applebee's" we'd say. But 'e never 'eard any of it.

Macbeth: Anyway, today we heard that Snuffaluffagus was gonna be called down and when we asked by who? They said you so we thought we'd do him a favor and warn you about the consequences of your ideas.

Shakespeare: Oh fate how you mock me! Doth my eyes deceive me or has my pen really unleashed such undue duress upon the world that can never be reversed? Come at once, and we will right the wrongs I have nutured for so long!

(Exeunt)

ACT TWO

Bill Shakespeare- Writer of stuff

Hamlet- Really REALLY English Dude

Macbeth- Captain Scotland

Brutus- traitor

Romeo and Juliet-Star-crossed siblings

Scene 1: British Pub

(Shakespeare, Hamlet, and Macbeth sit at the bar, leaning over half empty glasses of Guinness. All look fairly inebriated when Macbeth comes to a startling revelation?)

Macbeth: Hey! This stuff is horrible!

(Hamlet, through eyes of glass looks over at Macbeth with the intent to say something so mind blowingly passionate and moving that it will require all future generations to stop and truly examine their lot in life. But instead he lets out a giant belch, passes out, and falls backwards off his stool.)

Macbeth: (aside to Shakespeare) Thou art the man.

Shakespeare: No, good sir, I'm afraid it is thou who art the man.

Macbeth: I humbly decline as I have it upon the highest authority that Thou art the man.

Shakespeare: Word up. (Looking down at Hamlet) Is he gonna be all right?

Macbeth: Oh he'll be fine. You shoulda seen him at David Copperfields New Year's Eve party, he got so ripped on Molson Canadian that he made a pass at Benvolio and pitched face first through the hors de 'oeuvres.

(Both men share a hearty laugh after which Shakespeare gets very quiet and suddenly very serious.)

Shakespeare: Say uh, why was't that thou feared about my next drama.

Macbeth: Well Bill, Can I call you Bill?

Shakespeare: Sure

Macbeth: How bout pookie?

Shakespeare: ?

Macbeth: Bill's fine. Anyway Bill, let's just say that ours, ours meaning your character's, post novella lifestyles are not very enjoyable. I mean, it took me three years of therapy to convince myself that not every tree or shrub on the countryside was bent of my destruction.

Shakespeare: Really? I? I never knew.

(Then, as if on cue, actually? considering this is a play, he IS on cue, Brutus Stumbles through the doors of the pub.)

Brutus: Heh, sorry I'm late. Did we kill him yet?

Shakespeare: Kill me?

(Macbeth shoots a penetrating glare in Brutus' direction.)

Brutus: Uh? That is to say?kill him with hilarious anecdotes about priests and such? heh heh.

Shakespeare: You were going to KILL me!?!

Hamlet: (from on the floor) Kill is such a strong word, more like we were going to poke at you with swords until you either stopped moving or bled enough to our satisfaction.

Shakespeare: Oh what a wicked web I've woven! It is as if I bear a curse of my own genius, a genius so misunderstood that the very fruits of its labor wish to destroy it. And yay while I have no qualms about my unintentional misdeeds I find it ever so tragic that it must come to this. To destroyed at the hands of the very thing I created. To meet my tragic end from that which I gave beginning. A wretched act has come to pass, yet I must meet it like a divine warrior, shrouded in justification of my past actions and prepared to face that inevitable end in due course.

(Brutus and Macbeth stare at eachother and shrug their shoulders as Shakespeare continues to prattle on about celestial torment and other adjective-noun combinations that sound really cool (i.e. impenetrable fortitude, nondenominational wrath, quizzical flatulence, etc?)

Macbeth: And so, my good fellow, our intentions are now out in the clear I'm afraid we must proceed with this necessary act of treachery.

Shakespeare: Hold it, what did I do that was so terribly bad? I mean, you three seem to be fine. Who could I have possibly tormented worse than you three?

Hamlet: Well, you know Romeo and Juliet?

Shakespeare: But of course.

Hamlet: They are brother and sister.

Shakespeare: Well crud. (Sighs as he accepts this fate) If this damnable act need to carried out, let us not delay it any further. To the street.

(Exeunt all. Wait A few seconds and Hamlet comes back in, walks over to the tap and fills up once more before re-exeunting.)

ACT THREE

Billy Shakespeare-Bill of all Trades

Hamlet-Wasted

Macbeth-Vengeance is his

Brutus-Y tu me?

Romeo and Juliet-Tardy

Scene 1: The street outside of the pub

(Shakespeare is marched out onto the street as Hamlet, Brutus, and Macbeth all follow suit. In the middle of the street Shakespeare awaits his fate as the other three look betwixt each other.)

Macbeth: So how do we do it?

Hamlet: I say we draw and quarter 'im.

Macbeth: But we have no horses.

Hamlet: Oh? quite right.

Brutus: We could always slice him from stem to stern.

Macbeth: Ehh! I NEVER liked the way that sounded.

Hamlet: I'VE GOT IT!

Both: What?

Hamlet: First we need some Pop Rocks and a carbonated beverage.

Macbeth: Nevermind, we'll just behead him.

(All of the sudden a beggar, who sits crouched on the other side of the street, spontaneously bursts into flame while the others watch and try, although it really shouldn't be necessary, not to laugh. Anyway, from behind the flame step Romeo and Juliet.)

Macbeth: Well well well, come thither ho!

Romeo: Sorry about the wait, we got lost in the wormhole and had to ask directions.

Hamlet: Quite all right.

Juliet: Have we killed him yet?

Shakespeare: No, no! God forbid you miss a delight like that! Thankfully, Im still alive.

Brutus: Gee, for a guy about to lose his head you sure are quite jumpy.

Shakespeare: Oh yeah, well. I'll have you know, of all my characters, I enjoyed scripting you least.

Romeo: Even less than The Apothecary?

Shakespeare: Even less than The Apothecary.

Brutus: (charging at Shakespeare but caught by Hamlet.)Why damn your black heart William Shakespeare!

Macbeth: ENOUGH! Brutus, cease!, William, shut up!, Hamlet, stop drinking, I'm worried about you man, seriously?

Juliet: Look, did we come all the way here to yak all night. When are we gonna get to the blood lust.

(William Shakespeare takes three steps forward from the group and for some strange reason all the light of the moon focuses on him, like, I dunno, a spotlight or something?)

Shakespeare: I know now what bitter trials I am to face. I know now what my final judgment is to be. I understand, as a tree understands, that all life is directed toward one ultimate and inevitable conclusion. And yay, while I may not agree with the method by which my final destination plays out I accept it with all the grace that god's earth accepts its deliverance. And unto the crimson hands which befall this fate, I lend my pity.

For it is not?

(Macbeth interrupts.)

Macbeth: Ok, sorry but this is starting to bother me, just who in the heck are you talking to?

Shakespeare: I was merely thinking aloud in delicate and beautiful prose.

Macbeth: Yeah, well, would you stop?

Shakespeare: Such dire moments in one's life must be approached with the highest elegance. Which is why I wrote in the perfect balance of iambic pentameter.

Hamlet: Yeah about that, Because of that iambo pinto-meter or whatever, I had to learn English all over again. I mean everything I said was all choppy, I kept stopping in the middle of sentences cause the darn things never ended. Even though the lines were written for me I couldn't say them.

Romeo: Yeah I got that also.

Brutus: Me too.

Juliet: Same here.

Shakespeare: Oh you belligerent fools, can you not decipher between artistry and complexity? Everything in my plays was meant for the sake of eloquence. I wouldn't expect you to understand.

Macbeth: I dunno Bill, I have a feeling that when your characters can't make heads or tails out of your plays, you might want to try something else.

Shakespeare: Only a dunce could not follow the meaning of my work.

Macbeth: Oh yeah, well, you tell me, what exactly was the point of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Shakespeare: It's a stunning? err?. Its an epic? umm? it's a surreal? hmmm? its

Macbeth: Boring. It's boring. And preditcable, you always know that by the end of Act Three something's gonna happen that alters the entire course of the play and makes everyone who had the upper hand look like the most short sighted and bumbling morons walking the face of the planet.

(All of the sudden the beggar, who had just battened down the flames of Romeo and Juliet's entrance bursts into flames a second time as all heads turn towards him. From out of these new flames steps a man everyone seems to be unacquainted with.)

Man: Halt you foul savages!, William Shakespeare is free from your pitiful vengeance.

(With a flick of his wrist smoke covers the stage and when it clears, both the man and William Shakespeare are gone.)

Macbeth: Hmmm?. I really shoulda seen that one coming.

Brutus: Well, whadda we do now?

Macbeth: Now? we hunt.

(At this call to arms all five individuals exit the stage as the curtain falls on this painfully short Act.)

(On a related note, does anywhere one here have any real doubt about who the mysterious man is.{Snuffaluffagus} See what I mean about predictability?)

(P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.)

ACT FOUR

Bee-bo Shakespeare-He's a poet and?well? he knows it

Hamlet-Becoming more and more of a non factor scene to scene, kinda like he should've been in the real Hamlet.

Macbeth-Still mildly interesting

Brutus-Bone Daddy

Romeo and Juliet-Filler

Snuffaluffagus-Ever notice how even though I credited him in Act One he never made a appearance?

Scene 1: Stratford-Upon-Avon

(William Shakespeare and the mysterious man enter the room, Shakespeare looks awkwardly at his savior.)

Shakespeare: Uh, not to pry but, whom are you?

Man: (In a booming voice once only acquainted with God or James Earl Jones) I am Snuffaluffagus.

Shakespeare: Ahh, my newest creation and no doubt my most intelligent.

Snuffaluffagus: Quiet fool! I have no idea, no hide nor hair of your intentions with me, but your persecution is unjust by any standards.

Shakespeare: An acceptable diagnosis of the situation.

Snuffaluffagus: That man, that Macbeth means you dire harm and there is only one way to prevent it.

Shakespeare: And what, pray tell, is that?

(Snuffaluffagus proceeds to tell Shakespeare of his boundless solution as dramatic music plays and the lights dim for the next Scene.)

Scene 2: On the road to Stratford Upon Avon.

(Romeo, Juliet, Brutus, Hamlet, and Macbeth all walk slowly and surreptitiously through the nght air.)

Juliet: Man thank God this entire thing doesn't seem very plot intensive or this sort of delay would make an audience ready to hurl rocks at the actors onstage. Uh? not that this a play or anything.

(From that aforementioned forth dimension booms relentless laughter which, unbeknownst to them, the characters intentionally refuse to acknowledge.)

Hamlet: So what are we gonna do 'ere Macbeth.

Macbeth: We are going to find that man and we are going to proceed as planned with the due punishment of William Shakespeare.

Hamlet: But Macbeth, that man was?

Macbeth: Snuffaluffagus I know.

Hamlet: But if he wants to save him why are we even doing this. I thought the entire point was to spare his suffering.

Macbeth: Ehh, A minor detail. But not necessary to the true take at hand. You see my dear Hamlet, I come from a future where the entire planet is ruled under the Cliff's Notes empire. As you know, Cliff's Notes are a shortened, comprehensive summary of classic literature that elsewhile would make no sense at all. The major author purchased under Cliff's Notes umbrella publishing division is a one William Shakespeare. It is with his last major work Snuffaluffagus, that William Shakespeare reaches a whole new level of rambling absurdity and the revenue generated by Cliff's Notes, who is the only power strong enough to translate the chicken scratch of a drama, is enough so that they become and empire and slowly and effectively take over the world. If we do not prevent this play from being written, the world of the future will be an enslaved mass ironically spending every bit of their time translating 1984 and its hidden meaning into easy-to-read text.

Hamlet: You're mad!

Macbeth: Perhaps? but 'twere him who wrote me that way.

Scene 3: Stratford Upon-Avon.

(Shakespeare stands after being told of Snuffaluffagus' plan to address the heavens.)

Shakespeare: And it comes down to this? This entire travesty comes down to a final and decisive scene. One thoroughly laid out between the lines of the entire play. A scheme so integral that?

(Enter Macbeth, Hamlet, Brutus, Romeo, and Juliet.)

Macbeth: Just shut up already! We are here. And time to meet your maker it is. And why in the passive voice did I make that last statement and this one proceeding it?

Snuffaluffagus: Silence Macbeth! I have endured your banter for too long.

Macbeth: You know not what it is you do Snuffaluffagus.

Snuffaluffagus: Macbeth, your character is indeed tragic.

Brutus: Him tragic? I betrayed my entire country under the false pretense that I was doing what was best for them.

Hamlet: Oh please, according to every therapist I've been to not only am I a complaining wimp, but apparently I have an Oedipus Complex!

Snuffaluffagus: Enough! It matters not which of you is more tragic when your low moral value reduces each of you to a level in which cold blooded murder becomes acceptable. Now Macbeth, as a solution toward your bitter anger and disregard for life, I propose this?

(The curtain falls? for a second the audience is convinced that this was merely the fault of the theater production crew but after a while it becomes ever-so-clear that this is the end of Act Four.)

ACT FIVE

"Superfly" Billy S.-In da House

Hamlet-Warrior Prince

Macbeth-One bad dude

Brutus-Too cool for school, even trade school, which is why he works at Denny's

Snuffaluffagus-The man with all the answers

Romeo and Juliet-Conveniently and unnoticeably left out due to time constraints

Scene 1: Stratford Upon Avon

HOLD IT!!!!!!!!

This is your playwright speaking and due to the complete sensibility throughout the play we have been informed that half the audience has either left or fallen asleep. It is with this knowledge that we abandon the entire course that the play had been heading and present you instead with this action-movie blockbuster ending in keeping with the Shakespearian Theory that everyone, no matter how insignificant, must die and give odd, off color proverbs about the meaning of their role in the play.

Scene 1: Atop the Hoover Dam

(Shakespeare stands on the edge of the dam blindfolded as Macbeth holds a .45 Magnum Revolver at the back of his head.)

Shakespeare: I'll never talk Macbeth.

Macbeth: Oh you won't will you Mr. Shakespeare, well I'll have you know that the Dunsinane United Affiliation of Armed Corps Bad Guys are already en route to Panama to destroy your team before they can defuse the atomic missile aimed at Washington D.C. They will all be shot on sight. Except for your pretty little girlfriend, I want to attend to her myself.

Shakespeare: No! not Alyssa (Played by Denise Richards)! Macbeth you wont get away with this I swear it!

Macbeth: Oh I wont will I?

(Macbeth whacks Shakespeare with the gun sending him flying over the edge of the dam, which, as a stage prop, took forever to build. Shakespeare falls one hundred feet before Macbeth realizes the bungee cord tied around his ankle, feeling like the most short sighted warlord ever, Macbeth's eyes grow wide as his henchman Brutus runs up?)

Brutus: My lord, I?

(From behind Brutus a glowing blue blade shoots through his chest. Brutus falls to his knees, revealing Snuffaluffagus standing determinedly behind him, light saber in hand.)

Brutus: Alas, my king, I am dead.

(Macbeth starts towards Snuffaluffagus..)

Macbeth: Why you wretched!?

Brutus: ?and it is in death that I do see the true error in my ways.

Macbeth: ahem? anyway, you filthy?

Brutus: For to not follow your heart is to truly be dead. And now as I die ever so slowly as to allow this monologue, I see that the only means for redemption in this world is death.

Macbeth: (pauses) And now?

Brutus: O what cruel fortune!!

(Macbeth takes initiative and shoots Brutus an extra 35 to 40 times just to make sure that he wont have any more revelations before drawing a light saber of his own.)

Macbeth: You sniveling toad! I shall smite you upside the head the force of a thousand scoldings.

Snuffaluffagus: (Saying the only thing that can be said at this point.) Bring it on.

(Both men battle furiously atop the Dam as Shakespeare climbs his way slowly to the top. Although now that you mention it, since Macbeth has a light saber, why couldn't he just cut the cord in half. Anyway, as Shakespeare reaches the top on the dam Macbeth strikes the fatal blow right in the heart of Snuffaluffagus, prompting a completely necessary.)

Shakespeare: NO!!!!!!!!!!

(Macbeth begins a dead sprint across the dam as Shakespeare follows closely behind revolver drawn. Macbeth pulls a man from a jet black Hummer parked at the road and jumps in it to make a hasty get away. Shakespeare, with expert marksmanship and disregard for the feelings of the vehicles owner, shoots out the tire of the Hummer sending it spiraling hundreds and thousands of feet to the bottom of the dam where it promptly explodes. Shakespeare, faced caked with soot says?)

Shakespeare: To be or not to be? That answers that question.

(Shakespeare walks slowly away from the wreckage of the battle and as he gets to the greener pastures lying on the other side of the dam he falls to his knees.)

Shakespeare: My life's work embattled against me. It is a truly of a broken heart that I leave this world.

(Then, for some reason that doesn't really make any sense, he dies. Hamlet, who I guess was tied up and being interrogated for the entire time when they could have used his help walks up to the body of Shakespeare and says?)

Hamlet: The bitter earth has never seen a purer soul than he.

(Cue dramatic trumpet music and the curtain falls a final time on the stage.)

THE END?

-----------------

Forwarded Message:

Subj: here ya go

Date: 5/15/2002 9:58:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time

From: JwainwrightPWF

To: [email protected]