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10 Doldrum Beat |
From Mary Celeste |
[The bell strikes and lights come up on Mary Celeste. Though she is at sea, her sails are not moving: Briggs contemplates the ship's motionless weather-vane. He sings a melancholy tune as he writes his log, unwittingly using Schliemann's Myths and Legends for the purpose]
Briggs
Well a stranger winter I've ever known
three long days and the wind's not blown
Hard to head for the wide blue yond:
sea's as calm as a stagnant pond.
What to do when the climate fails,
and takes the wind from the Captain's sails?
Racking my brains for a good technique
To circumvent the climatic freak.
[A sad chord ends this verse; the Crew start rapping to a simple bass line and hand-clap]
Crew
Here comes the crew of Mary Celeste
We're the MC Crew and we're the best
Our attitude is, if we hit the groove
the winds in this latitude will start to move
We know all the tricks of the great explorers
rulers of the wind in the days before us
What did they do to get sails to flap?
Permission to begin historical rap?
[With a gesture Briggs cuts the bass-line, and the Band returns to his gloomy tune]
Briggs
Nothing you can do's gonna raise a storm
But carry on, boys, if it keeps you warm
[Crew come down off the ship, commenting to each other that Hey! We're so cool we can walk on water! They start the Band again and resume their rap vigorously]
Crew
We gonna raise a West wind one time!
Well it's 1292 in a place called India
Everybody wishes that the wind was windier
That Marco Polo stomps his feet
and soon he's got that doldrum beat
that dol-drum beat
[Add (dol)drum beat; a few Crew stamp feet for a while but Briggs remains moodily aloof and has a disturbing, psychotic aspect. He silences the Band: all pause and look at weather-vane. Nothing doing. He dolorously comments]
Briggs
Hark at all of their aimless blether
Do you fools believe man affects the weather?
[Crew restart Band and pursue their rap vigorously]
Crew
We gonna raise a North wind one time!
It's 1492, Christopher Columbus:
he wakens the wind from its golden slumbers
he calls to the band for a funky tune
and soon it's blowing like a big typhoon
a big typhoon
[Band start up a new riff with stabbing chords, which the Crew funkily sing, impersonating brass players; a few more Crew come off the ship and join in, until Briggs silences Band. All stare at weather-vane hopefully: nothing doing. Briggs resumes his mournful tune]
Briggs
Makes me feel so goddam cynical
Wanna bang my head on the blasted binnacle
[Crew restart Band and rap on vigorously]
Crew
We gonna raise a South wind one time!
1497, stuck in Bristol
Clouds won't move and the water's crystal
You can call him Cabot, you can call him Cabo
but this is what he does to make the four winds blow
the four winds blow
[Band in full flight: all Crew, except for the unhappy Sarah and Sophia, now down on the sea, dancing energetically; Briggs cuts Band; pause, gawp at the weather-vane: nothing doing; lugubriously the Captain comments]
Briggs
All these acres of canvas idle
it could turn a man quite homicidal
[Crew restart Band and rap on vigorously]
Crew
We gonna raise an East wind one time
1521, going round the world
Magellan gets stuck, and his sails stay furled
'til he spins round and round like a weather vane
then he hurries home on a hurricane
a hurricane
[Entire Crew, except Briggs, gyrate frantically until Briggs abruptly cuts them off and starts to step down on to the water himself, snarling a half-sung rap of his own. He does indeed look quite homicidal]
Briggs
Well it's no surprise to see your nonsense fail
This crummy band can't play the Beaufort Scale
and the bits of history you relate
have nobody in them who was really great
the books you read are way too up-to-date!
[Briggs's frightening savagery bewilders the Crew, whose rapping pales by comparison. Briggs brandishes Myths and Legends: he has now realised what the book really is]
But you know we solved this problem back in the Trojan War
The Grecian navy lay, becalmed, offshore
It was Agamemnon's great idea
to use his kid, Iphigenia:
"Where's my daughter, baby come down here?"
[Sophia hears these words of Agamemnon's, takes them as an order from her own father, and comes down from Mary Celeste across the water to Briggs, whose demeanour now calls to mind Jack Nicholson's towards the end of The Shining. He seizes hold of Sophia and continues]
"You know the weather used to be man's best friend
but now it's driving me round the bend
The gods are hungry for a sacrifice
and the youngest here's gotta pay the price"
[Sarah rushes to the rail, sensing that Briggs is in sudden earnest. Crowd hisses their disapproval of Briggs: it's the sound of wind whistling]
Sarah
Don't interfere with the one you love
for the sake of imaginary gods above
you love this child, we gave her birth
she's the sweetest treasure on the goddam earth
[Crowd's wind noises increase: weather-vane starts going round: Briggs, struggling to restrain Sophia, has to yell]
Briggs
Nothing could be worse than a nagging wife
Go to the cabin and fetch the knife
You can kiss goodbye to the sailing reg.s!
I gotta deliver this cargo of kegs
and you can't make omelettes if you don't break eggs!
[Vane spins furiously; wind so strong that all have terrible difficulty walking on the water. They cling, vainly, to Mary Celeste in order to stay on stage]
Crew
Captain, no! You must be mad
Don't spoil the sweetest thing you ever had
We gotta try living with the world we've got
One false move, you could wreck the lot
We gotta try loving the world we've got
One false move, you could wreck the lot
[But it's too late: they inexorably slide along the side of the ship and vanish into the wings; one or two, perhaps, have made it on to the deck, and they are blown off upstage, breaking the deck-rail as they go. Music from the Band degenerates into frantic chaos; as lights go down on ship, weather-vane stops spinning]