HAMLET’S ADVICE TO HIS PLUMBER
A Play in One Act
CHARACTERS
Hamlet……………………………………………………………………………Prince of Denmark
The Plumber………………………………………………………………A Regular Guy
The Time is more or less eternal
The Place is a Royal bathroom.
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(LIGHTS UP on a sink at Elsinore. HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK, is perched on top of it in profile to us, his royal posterior on one edge of the rim, his feet propped up on the other. Deep in his melancholy, he feigns reading a book. Beneath the sink, a PLUMBER in a greasy uniform struggles with the pipes. Hamlet gloomily peers down into the bowl of the sink.)
HAMLET
How very like the murky depths of my heartache, the wretched demons of thousands upon thousands of unnamable amoeba–
(The Plumber bangs on the pipe a couple of times. Hamlet has to crank up the volume a notch or two to hear himself complain.)
HAMLET
— whose rank, foul and uncountenanced existences feed thus on their own putridity–
PLUMBER
Corrosion.
HAMLET
(Nods)
Truly these vile and bilious treacheries rot at the very soul of our nation–
PLUMBER
No, I meant your pipes. You got corrosion building up on the inside here, that’s how come your sink’s backin’ up.
HAMLET
Oh.
(Hamlet shakes his head, then returns to his ruminating.)
HAMLET
Lucky the man whose thoughts need be troubled by none but the base practicalities–
(The Plumber looks up, and pokes Hamlet in the posterior with a wrench to get his attention.)
PLUMBER
Uh, excuse me, there, Mr. Hamlet.
(Hamlet looks at him.)
PLUMBER
Why don’t you just kill him?
HAMLET
What?
PLUMBER
Your uncle, sonny– why don’t you just whack the guy and get it over with?
(Hamlet is stunned. No one has ever said this to him before.)