Slings and Arrows

Richard Smith-Jones:
I can't comfort you right now - I'm on hold.

Anna Conroy:
[holding Oliver's skull] It's not that heavy at all!

Geoffrey Tennant:
It's much lighter without the ego.

Richard Smith-Jones:
Darren, everyone cries when they're stabbed. There's no shame in that!

Sloan:
Okay, so why'd you kick another guy's ass for disparaging a girl you're not even with any more?

Geoffrey Tennant:
Do you love Ellen?

Sloan:
F***in' right!

Geoffrey Tennant:
Well, if you feel the same way now as I did seven years ago, then you're going to spend the rest of your life kicking other people's asses for her whether you're with her or not. That's just how truly horrible life can be.

Cyril:
[singing, with friend joining in on the chorus] Cheer up, Hamlet; chin up, Hamlet; buck up, you melancholy Dane! So your uncle is a cad who murdered Dad and married Mum. That's really no excuse to be as glum as you've become! So wise up, Hamlet; rise up, Hamlet; perk up and sing a new refrain. Your incessant monologizing fills the castle with ennui. Your antic disposition is embarrassing to see. And by the way, you sulky brat, the answer is to be! You're driving poor Ophelia insane. So shut up, you rogue and peasant; grow up, it's most unpleasant; cheer up, you melancholy Dane!

Cyril:
[about Geoffrey] He's doing the rounds. He saw the Chekov on Tuesday. He was at the Dream last night.

Frank:
No!

Cyril:
Yeah. There he was. Third raw from the back. Head burried in his hands like he lost a brother in the war.

Frank:
Crikey. He wouldn't recast, would he?

Cyril:
Not the Dream, no. But God knows what he'll do with Oliver's Hamlet. Play the lead himself.

Frank:
You think?

Cyril:
Oh, why not? It was the play that drow him mad. Seven years ago. I saw it all with me own eyes. Halfway through the gravedigger scene he suddenly went all quiet and pale.

Frank:
He went off?

Cyril:
Off his nut. Then he leaped.

Frank:
Leaped?

Cyril:
Into the grave, Ducky. Into Ophelia's bloody grave. Leaving Horatio and Laertes staring down into the hole as if they just made a wish.

Frank:
Crikey.

Cyril:
Crikey indeed. Then he went screaming out into the night, mad as a hatter.

Frank:
Well, he's been to hospital. Had treatments. Maybe he's better.

Cyril:
Or maybe he's worse. Hey up. Here she comes.

Geoffrey Tennant:
Carlsberg. [looks at Oliver's skull] Two Carlsberg.

Frank:
Crikey.

Cyril:
Bloody hell.

Ellen Fanshaw:
Are we done 'chatting'?

Geoffrey Tennant:
Sure.

Ellen Fanshaw:
Should I leave, then?

Geoffrey Tennant:
Unless you enjoy awkward silences, yes. You should leave now.

Geoffrey Tennant:
This is my life. I live in a storage room. I eat soup with a dead man.

Oliver Welles:
It could be worse.

Geoffrey Tennant:
How?

Oliver Welles:
You could be the dead man. Did you ever think of that?

Richard Smith-Jones:
I don't understand. How do actors do it? How do they deal with the rejection?

Geoffrey Tennant:
They drink!

Darren Nichols:
I must say, I've fallen in love with the musical genre. It's the artform of the common man. If you want to communicate something with the prolatariot, cover it in sequins and make it sing. It's noisy, vulgar and utterly meaningless... I love it.

Richard Smith-Jones:
OK, how would you advertise?

Sanjay:
Richard, I don't use that word.

Richard Smith-Jones:
Advertise?

Sanjay:
Yes, that is not what we do here.

Richard Smith-Jones:
You don't do advertising?

Sanjay:
Richard, people are tired of ads in all their forms. They don't believe anything we say and it doesn't work. We at Frog Hammer ask ourselves very simple things. Is it wondrous? Does it move you? Is it culturally authentic? We believe that people are sick of being lied to. If you use truth, you can sell people anything. If you want to react, to feel, to buy, tell them the truth! TRUTH IS THE NEW LIE!

Richard Smith-Jones:
F*** it. You're hired.

Richard Smith-Jones:
So Nadine's neck is broken? Is that what you're saying?

Anna Conroy:
Yes!

Richard Smith-Jones:
We'll have to find a replacement.

Anna Conroy:
Yes! And her neck is broken! Which is much worse than having to find a replacement director!

Richard Smith-Jones:
Yes! I'm not being insensitive, Anna! I'm just thinking ahead, OK? Let's send her some flowers, alright? A basket: big. Let's pray she doesn't sue.

Anna Conroy:
Of course, because that would be truly horrible.

Richard Smith-Jones:
What? I'm not HEARTLESS! I'm just... I'm detail-oriented.

Geoffrey Tennant:
Well, you can act, and that's a turn on.

Terry:
Yes it is. Yes. It. Is.

Geoffrey Tennant:
You know there is one thing about acting that I miss.

Terry:
What?

Geoffrey Tennant:
I was in love with an actress. Beautiful, talented actress. And when we were together on the stage it was like, it was like having sex in public.

Terry:
Uchh. I love that.

Geoffrey Tennant:
And I have never felt as close to anyone. And we played all of the great love scenes and we meant it and people would stand and they'd cheer and then they would throw flowers and then we would go home and we would make love... And that, I miss that. Because life cannot compete with that.

Terry:
I can't compete with that.

Geoffrey Tennant:
[getting up and leaving the bar] Come on, I need you to be my second.

Terry:
[following him] Okay!... What's a second?

Darren Nichols:
I'm Darren Nichols. Deal with that.

Sloan:
[off-camera] C'mon, babe, the 'za is getting cold!

Ellen Fanshaw:
[to Richard] I have to go. The 'za is getting cold.

Richard Smith-Jones:
There must be something you can use from Darren's design. I seem to remember something about seventeen thousand dollars' worth of pyrotechnics.

Geoffrey Tennant:
It is "Hamlet"! It's not "Tommy"!

Richard Smith-Jones:
Darren, let me take you to breakfast and we can discuss the incident.

Darren Nichols:
You make it sound like an ill-timed fart; I was stabbed!

Geoffrey Tennant:
I wanted to throttle a swan. It...seemed sensible at the time.

Geoffrey Tennant:
I felt like I needed to throttle a swan.

Geoffrey Tennant:
Oliver Welles is dead! I poured him in the river and swans *ate* him!

Ellen Fanshaw:
This is the life of an actress. You play the Ing?nues, you play the Queens, you play the dreaded Nurse, then you retire to PAL. Then you sit there in the dining room eating rice pudding and hearing endless tales of life on the wicked stage. And you realize that you never really lived at all, you just pretended. Is that what you want?

Kate McNab:
I can't believe you're saying this to me. I'm supposed to play Juliette

Ellen Fanshaw:
You can play it, or you can live it. Your choice.

Kate McNab:
Oh my God.

Ellen Fanshaw:
Kate! You know me. I'm petty and bitter. There's a reason for that, ok? Don't make me spell it out. Just go! Go girl! Seek happy nights and happy days. See? I'm playing the Nurse already!

Geoffrey Tennant:
I have a responsibility to the entire company, to the festival. This is about theatre ethics.

Oliver Welles:
Theatre ethics? That's like saying "whorehouse morals".

Sophie:
She puts bread in the fridge. Who puts bread in the fridge?

Paul:
Dancers apparently.

Sophie:
Bread is big. Bread takes up room.

Paul:
It's an insult!

Sophie:
It's not like she eats anyway. Have you seen her? Maybe she eats glue. Maybe paste.

Paul:
Three Words: Stink. Bomb.

Darren Nichols:
I saw, at a laboratory in Rotterdam, a chimpanzee, driven to a state of sexual frenzy, simply by listening to a C Major chord over and over again. I saw it with my own eyes.