MARLEY! The musical!
Jan. 14th, 2009 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyatThis arose from a chance conversation with a coworker about the movie of the same name. Possibly I may even finish writing it!
MARLEY!
A Dickensian Musical, by Pieter van Hiel
Opening scene, stage left
Cheerful middle-class children, sit at the feet of their grandfather. The room is decorated for Christmas. The children settle in, and clamor for grandfather to read from a large leather book.
GRANDPA: Now, are you kids sure you want to hear that old story again…?
BOY It’s a tradition!
GIRL: Yes, grandpa! We hear it every year.
GRANDPA: All right, all right. Ha ha! Let’s see here….
Grandpa fishes out a pair of reading glasses and settles them on his nose. He opens the book, and begins to read.
GRANDPA: Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner….
As Grandfather reads, his voice grows quieter. Dim lights stage left. Bring up eerie blue light on centre stage, silhouetting a dark figure, dressed in Dickensian attire, bound in chains.
GRANDPA: (Invisible in the darkness, talking loudly again) Marley was DEAD.
The silhouetted figure on center stage recoils at the words.
GRANDPA: Marley was dead…. To begin with… Marley was dead… dead as a doornail…(fades to echo)
Bring up spotlight on central figure. He is MARLEY’S GHOST, done up in white make up and festooned with chains and moneyboxes. As the lights rise, we can make out a line of similarly attired and chained “ghosts”.
ALL: (Chanting) Dead to Begin With, Dead to Begin With, Dead to Begin With…
Music rises, turning the chant into a dirge.
MARLEY’S GHOST: (singing) O! Marley was dead!
GHOST CHORUS: (singing) Dead to begin with!
MARLEY’S GHOST: (singing) Scrooge knew he was dead!
GHOST CHORUS: (singing) Dead as a door nail!
Etc. as cast break into singing “Marley Was Dead,” with much dancing and chain rattling and dance moves with strongboxes ala “Stomp.” Song ends with GHOST CHORUS howling and rattling chains, as lights dim, leaving only MARLEY’S GHOST left in the spotlight.
MARLEY’s GHOST: Yes, Marley was dead. You know the story. How I appeared to Scrooge and taught the old sinner the error of his ways. But not “to begin with.” To begin with, Marley was alive. Very much alive. It stands to reason!
Lights up stage right, revealing a sparse 19th century bedroom, where a young boy about 8 years of age, in tattered attire, plays with a wooden horse.
MARLEY’S GHOST (observing boy at play): Yes, I was full of life. Full of the same potential for good and evil, joys and sorrows as any man who died a saint or sinner.
Offstage, a loud, angry male voice shouts. This is MR. STUMPS, a sandboy who apprenticed YOUNG MARLEY from the Workhouse.
MR. STUMPS: Marley! Jacob Marley! Where are you! Dem yer eyes! I’ll skin you with a bootscrape if you don’t jump to!
MARLEY: Alas, it is not we who choose the situations that awaits us when we enter life, nor we who choose our relations, or friends… or guardians.
A large, rough man in shabby work clothes bursts into the room. Young Marley cowers back.
MR. STUMPS: Bah! Unnatural creature! Cowering from yer master, eh? Was you raised a dog? I shall beat yer like one if ye don’t stand to!
YOUNG MARLEY: (rising, hiding the horse behind his back) No sir! Please no, sir!
MR. STUMPS: What’s that yer hidin’? Eh? An ‘orse! Give it ‘ere!
MR. STUMPS snatches away the toy horse.
MR. STUMPS: Who give this to yer? That meddlin’ aunt o’ yours?
YOUNG MARLEY: Yes sir, please sir, it’s Christmas present, sir…
MR. STUMPS: What’s Christmas to a Sandboy? People has got to scrubs their pots on Christmas, same as any day. Dem thirsty and dry work it is, do, digging the sand and sellin’ it…
MR. STUMPS fingers the toy horse thoughtfully.
MR. STUMPS: You ain’t give me a present today, boy, so I shall takes this one, and flog it, and buys meself a gift in praise of our Lord’s birth, down the gin shop. Oh, I shall be a jolly Sandboy, I shall.
YOUNG MARLEY: No! No, you shan’t! It’s mine!
YOUNG MARLEY tries to snatch back the horse, only to be felled by a casual blow from MR. STUMPS, who swaggers out, singing “Good King Wenceslas.”
YOUNG MARLEY stifles a few sobs, and rises from the floor, while MARLEY’S GHOST looks on…
MARLEY’S GHOST: And thus it was every Christmas, for the first twelve years of my life, until I was out of my indentures. I did not learn the Sandboy trade, but I did learn much about the hardship of the world, and learned that the only certain roof for the poor was a coffin lid.
MARLEY!
A Dickensian Musical, by Pieter van Hiel
Opening scene, stage left
Cheerful middle-class children, sit at the feet of their grandfather. The room is decorated for Christmas. The children settle in, and clamor for grandfather to read from a large leather book.
GRANDPA: Now, are you kids sure you want to hear that old story again…?
BOY It’s a tradition!
GIRL: Yes, grandpa! We hear it every year.
GRANDPA: All right, all right. Ha ha! Let’s see here….
Grandpa fishes out a pair of reading glasses and settles them on his nose. He opens the book, and begins to read.
GRANDPA: Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner….
As Grandfather reads, his voice grows quieter. Dim lights stage left. Bring up eerie blue light on centre stage, silhouetting a dark figure, dressed in Dickensian attire, bound in chains.
GRANDPA: (Invisible in the darkness, talking loudly again) Marley was DEAD.
The silhouetted figure on center stage recoils at the words.
GRANDPA: Marley was dead…. To begin with… Marley was dead… dead as a doornail…(fades to echo)
Bring up spotlight on central figure. He is MARLEY’S GHOST, done up in white make up and festooned with chains and moneyboxes. As the lights rise, we can make out a line of similarly attired and chained “ghosts”.
ALL: (Chanting) Dead to Begin With, Dead to Begin With, Dead to Begin With…
Music rises, turning the chant into a dirge.
MARLEY’S GHOST: (singing) O! Marley was dead!
GHOST CHORUS: (singing) Dead to begin with!
MARLEY’S GHOST: (singing) Scrooge knew he was dead!
GHOST CHORUS: (singing) Dead as a door nail!
Etc. as cast break into singing “Marley Was Dead,” with much dancing and chain rattling and dance moves with strongboxes ala “Stomp.” Song ends with GHOST CHORUS howling and rattling chains, as lights dim, leaving only MARLEY’S GHOST left in the spotlight.
MARLEY’s GHOST: Yes, Marley was dead. You know the story. How I appeared to Scrooge and taught the old sinner the error of his ways. But not “to begin with.” To begin with, Marley was alive. Very much alive. It stands to reason!
Lights up stage right, revealing a sparse 19th century bedroom, where a young boy about 8 years of age, in tattered attire, plays with a wooden horse.
MARLEY’S GHOST (observing boy at play): Yes, I was full of life. Full of the same potential for good and evil, joys and sorrows as any man who died a saint or sinner.
Offstage, a loud, angry male voice shouts. This is MR. STUMPS, a sandboy who apprenticed YOUNG MARLEY from the Workhouse.
MR. STUMPS: Marley! Jacob Marley! Where are you! Dem yer eyes! I’ll skin you with a bootscrape if you don’t jump to!
MARLEY: Alas, it is not we who choose the situations that awaits us when we enter life, nor we who choose our relations, or friends… or guardians.
A large, rough man in shabby work clothes bursts into the room. Young Marley cowers back.
MR. STUMPS: Bah! Unnatural creature! Cowering from yer master, eh? Was you raised a dog? I shall beat yer like one if ye don’t stand to!
YOUNG MARLEY: (rising, hiding the horse behind his back) No sir! Please no, sir!
MR. STUMPS: What’s that yer hidin’? Eh? An ‘orse! Give it ‘ere!
MR. STUMPS snatches away the toy horse.
MR. STUMPS: Who give this to yer? That meddlin’ aunt o’ yours?
YOUNG MARLEY: Yes sir, please sir, it’s Christmas present, sir…
MR. STUMPS: What’s Christmas to a Sandboy? People has got to scrubs their pots on Christmas, same as any day. Dem thirsty and dry work it is, do, digging the sand and sellin’ it…
MR. STUMPS fingers the toy horse thoughtfully.
MR. STUMPS: You ain’t give me a present today, boy, so I shall takes this one, and flog it, and buys meself a gift in praise of our Lord’s birth, down the gin shop. Oh, I shall be a jolly Sandboy, I shall.
YOUNG MARLEY: No! No, you shan’t! It’s mine!
YOUNG MARLEY tries to snatch back the horse, only to be felled by a casual blow from MR. STUMPS, who swaggers out, singing “Good King Wenceslas.”
YOUNG MARLEY stifles a few sobs, and rises from the floor, while MARLEY’S GHOST looks on…
MARLEY’S GHOST: And thus it was every Christmas, for the first twelve years of my life, until I was out of my indentures. I did not learn the Sandboy trade, but I did learn much about the hardship of the world, and learned that the only certain roof for the poor was a coffin lid.
