Robin Hood Section from The History of Dartmoor Theatre play


FORD: It's sometime in March, and there's a meeting of the church authorities.

Women could at least be church wardens in those days.

In PARISH PRIEST, CHURCH WARDEN and ANOTHER

PRIEST: Right, so we come to the last item on the agenda. Churchwarden?

CHURCHWARDEN: Yes, well, John Creber has applied for a grant from the parish

authorities to put on a Hood play.

ANOTHER: What does he need a grant for? Won't it be self-supporting?

CHURCHWARDEN: Apparently for items such as bows and swords and green

garments.

PRIEST: I'm new in the parish. As the parish priest, of course, I'm ultimately

responsible, but I'd like to feel my way and not tread on anyone's toes too hard. Is this

sort of thing in order?

CHURCHWARDEN: In my youth I can remember the odd Hood play or game as they

used to call it. But we haven't had one for a long while now.

ANOTHER: Do we really want to be funding the provision of dangerous weapons to a

young hot-head like Creber?

CHURCHWARDEN: He comes from a good family.

PRIEST: That means little where the behaviour of young men is concerned, in my

experience.

ANOTHER: Does anyone in this parish really want to see a Hood play? From what

I've heard it's all about taking money from the hard-working well-off and giving it to

the lazy poor.

CHURCHWARDEN: I believe among the younger members of the parish there is

some support for it.

PRIEST: How much is Creber asking for?

CHURCHWARDEN: One pound, two shillings and three pence.

ANOTHER: That's a lot of money.

CHURCHWARDEN: Can I remind the committee that receipts from our investment

in tin mines have been good this year.

ANOTHER: Yes but it is incumbent upon us as responsible trustees to build up

reserves. Can we really afford to give out that sort of money to the first Tom, Dick or

Harry...

CHURCHWARDEN: in this case John...

ANOTHER: ...who asks for it? What sort of precedent is that? Others may very well

follow. And then when the church roof blows off, or the tower is struck by lightning -

probably as the result of this blasphemous Hood drama - where will the money come

from to repair it?

PRIEST: It sounds as though we'd better turn him down, Churchwarden.

CHURCHWARDEN: If that's your wish. I should point out that if Creber doesn't have

a grant, the practice is for Hood players to make up losses incurred in the preparation

of the production by robbing any wealthy members of the parish they happen to come

across at sword-point.

PRIEST: Ah.

ANOTHER: I see.

CHURCHWARDEN: And perhaps I should add that sales of ale at plays often raise a

substantial sum for our funds.

PRIEST: It may be, Churchwarden, that what you've just said throws a slightly

different light on the matter. Shall we put it to a vote? Those against, raise their hands.

That settles it. One pound, two shillings and three pence granted to John Creber for

the purchase of tunics and equipment for a Hood play.

Out PRIEST, CHURCHWARDEN and ANOTHER

In FRIAR and HOOD

FRIAR: Away, ragged knave

Or you shall have it on the skin.

HOOD: Of all the men in the morning, you're the worst.

The one I least want to meet with.

He that meets a friar or a fox in the morning

Runs the risk of things going wrong for him the whole day.

I'd rather meet with the devil in hell,

Friar, if I'm to be honest with you,

Than encounter a friar or a fox in the morning

Before I've had a drink.

FRIAR: Get out of my way, you tramp, if you mock me

With any more of your words, I'll give you one hell of a knock.

HOOD: Listen, Friar, to what I swear here.

You're going to carry me over this stretch of water,

Since the bridge has been washed away.

FRIAR: I won't say no.

It would be a pity and a sin for you to break your oath!

Up on a Friar's back then.

HOOD: Bend over then.

HOOD climbs on FRIAR's back

FRIAR: Now I'm a Friar in it and you, Robin, are out.

But I can change all that like this, no doubt

FRIAR throws HOOD in the water and climbs out

Now Robin, you're in, and I the Friar am out of it.

Lie there, you knave, and let's see whether you sink or swim.

HOOD: Why, you lousy Friar, what have you done?

FRIAR: Only thrown a criminal head over heels.

HOOD: You won't get away with this. What are you like with staves?

FRIAR: Have a stroke for Friar Tuck.

They fight with staves

HOOD: Hold your arm Friar and hear me speak.

FRIAR: Speak away, you tramp.

HOOD: In this forest I have a hound

Which I wouldn't part with for a hundred pound

Give me leave to blow my horn

And summon my hound.

FRIAR: Blow on, gypsy boy, blow I said

Till both of your eyes start out of your head.

HOOD blows and is joined by knaves in green cloth

FRIAR: I gave you leave to blow at your will

Now give me leave to whistle my fill.

HOOD: Whistle Friar - you'll come to no good -

Till both of your eyes start out of your head.

FRIAR summons his dogs

FRIAR: Bring out the clubs and staves

And down with those ragged knaves.

The outlaws and the dogs fight

HOOD: How say you, Friar, will you be my man

And give me the best service you can -

You shall have gold?

FRIAR: Gold, then it's a deal

HOOD: And to celebrate let's have a dance. Here's the Marian.

In BOY dressed as MARIAN

LEAH: But it's a boy, it should be a girl. It's ridiculous, Maid Marian a boy.

FORD: Have it your way. That's how it was according to the authorities, but as I said

in the remoter parts of Dartmoor, who knows? And I was so young myself when I saw

the plays, I'm not sure I can remember. Anyway, I think I agree with you - ridiculous,

Maid Marian a boy.

I saw in Brussels, at my being there,

The Duke of Brabant welcome the Archbishop

Of Mentz with rare conceit, even on a sudden,

Performed by knights and ladies of his court,

In nature of an antic; which methought -

For that I ne’er before saw women antics -

Was for the newness strange, and much commended.

STEVE: What was all that about? What are antics?

FORD: Antics are comic actors. A speech I wrote for Fernando in my play Love's

Sacrifice suggesting my sympathy for the idea of women as actors.

HOOD: Do you want us to get on with the play or shall we just run riot and force the

audience to hand over all their loose change?

FORD: He's referring to the Hood game - in some versions of Hood that's all it was,

the young men of the parish running riot and forcing anyone who wouldn't join them

to hand over whatever they had about their persons. No, I think not Robert. Though

sometimes it gets close to what you might call 'spart', this is art not sport, so let's get

on with the play.

LEAH: And give us something to identify with. Give us a girl or two.

MARIAN and HOOD do a broom dance

HOOD: Alright. Listen my merry men (and women) and harken to what I say

About an adventure that befell us just the other day.

I met a proud potter with a rose garland on his head -

The flowers of it shone a miraculously fresh red.

These seven years and more he has used this track over the moor

But never been courteous enough to pay a penny of toll for the poor.

Is there any of my merry men that dare be so bold

As to make the potter pay passage with either silver or gold?

LITTLE JOHN: Not I, Master, not for twenty pounds of the ready. There's not one

amongst us that dares meddle with that potter man for man. I felt his hands not long

ago. I know what he is. Meet him when you will and in what way you like, he is as

proper a man as ever you'll meddle with, Hood.

MARIAN: Listen to him. I know that potter too; he is a friend of my uncle the Abbot

Thomas, whose clutches I escaped from when I came to live with you.

HOOD: I'll bet you twenty pounds, Little John, that if I meet that potter, I'll make his

pay his passage.

LITTLE JOHN: Twenty pounds - you're on, .

They withdraw

In JACK

JACK: I am the potter's boy Jack.

Alas that ever I saw this day.

I've completely lost my way

To Tavistock town

If I don't get a move on

By the time I get there the market will be done.

HOOD steps forward

HOOD: Let me have a look. Are your pots whole and sound?

He takes a pot and drops it on the ground

JACK: Yes Master. But they will not break the ground.

HOOD: I will break them for that cuckold your master's sake.

And if they will not break the ground

You shall have three pence for a pound.

He drops more pots

JACK: Out alas! What have you done?

When my Master comes he'll break your crown.

In POTTER

POTTER: Why, you son of a whore, are you still here? I told you to go on ahead to

market. You should have been there by now.

JACK: I met with Hood, a good yeoman. He's broken my pots and called you a

cuckold.

POTTER: You may be a gentleman, God save me,

But you don't behave like one.

You call me a cuckold, but I swear to you on my life

By God and Saint Petrock

That I've never had a wife.

But if you'll be a good fellow and leave off

I'll sell my horse and harness and pots and baskets too

And you shall have one half and I the other.

But if that doesn't content you you're going to be black and blue

Even if you were my brother.

HOOD: Harken potter, to what I say.

These seven years and more

You have used this way

And yet were never courteous enough to me

As to pay one penny

In toll for your passage.

POTTER: Why should I pay toll money to you?

HOOD: Because I am Hood

King of the Forest of Dartmoor.

POTTER: These seven years I have used this route across the moor up and down and

never paid any man for the passage. And I'm not about to start now, though you do

your worst.

HOOD: Toll money you shall pay here under Wistman's Wood

Or else you'll leave me for dead.

POTTER: If you're the good fellow men say you are

Lay aside your bow.

Take your sword and buckler in hand

And see what the outcome is then.

They fight

HOOD: Little John where are you?

LITTLE JOHN steps forward

LITTLE JOHN: Here, Master.

I told you, God save,

You'd find the potter a knave.

Hold your buckler fast in your hand

I will stand

Upright beside you

Ready to fight.

Be the knave never so stout

I shall rap him on the snout

And put him to flight...

LEAH: I've had enough of this - one token woman who has about two lines and a lot

of childish men taking every opportunity for a bit of violence. All of the toys out of

the pram all of the time. And when a woman is mentioned, it has to be a whore doesn't

it?

STEVE: Calm down, Leah; it's history isn't it.

LEAH: You'll be history if you don't stop stroking me like a pet.

FORD: Once again I have to agree with you. I spent my working life trying to get men

to pay less attention to battle and more attention to women.

LEAH: It has to be the right sort of attention, the sort that means you're being taken

seriously

FORD: Of course.

LEAH: Were Hood plays really that puerile, like some sort of computer game with

aliens?

FORD: I think there was more to them than that. One of their roles was an outlet for

social discontent, a vehicle for ordinary people to satirise corrupt nobles and church

men. The lines I gave to Rhetias in my play The Lover's Melancholy sum up that

aspect of them:

Why should not I, a May-game, scorn the weight

Of my sunk fortunes? Snarl at the vices

Which rot the land, and without fear or wit

Be mine own antic?

Another of their roles was to keep the forces of nature under the noses of the

authorities so that religion and culture did not become too artificial. Right, Robert of

the Wood, or Jan Oo as you were originally on Dartmoor, can you do a little better

than that for our young friends? Use some imagination, depart from the script a little

in the name of truth. I used to play Hood myself with my sister and some friends in

the woods round Bagtor at Ilsington. We could do better than that.

In JACK FORD as boy and JANE FORD with FRIENDS

JACK FORD: What shall we play?

JANE: Hood.

JACK FORD: Alright. Which bit of Hood?

JANE: The end of Hood, when Jan and Marian die.

JACK FORD: You always like that bit, Jane. Why do you like it so much?

JANE: Because it has the best parts for girls; girls are important at the end.

JACK FORD: Alright. Let's do the end then.

BOY: Why do we always have to do what she says.

JACK FORD: Because it's our wood here, and I want to do what she says.

JANE: Alright, players. You know the drill. Some of you come behind this tree over

here with me, and the rest can go with Jack.

GIRL: My bow string's broken.

JANE: Here. I'll tie it with a knot.

Out different ways JACK FORD, JANE and FRIENDS

MARIAN and HOOD do a broom dance

In JACK

In ABBOT OF TAVISTOCK

ABBOT: Will nobody rid me of this vermin?

How many times must he rob those under my protection

Before he is brought to justice?

In ROGER THE CRUEL

ROGER: I will. He stole Marian from me.

I'll surprise him in his lair.

JACK: Some say he is a spirit -

No one can find his lair

Though you hear him calling: Jan Oo, Jan Oo

Nobody would dare

To follow that sound.

He would be on dangerous ground...

ROGER: I do

I know a trick will take me there.

Out ROGER THE CRUEL, ABBOT and JACK

In PEDDLER

PEDDLER: I am a Peddler, I come into the wood

To sell odds and ends to John Hood

Or Jan OO as they call him on the Moor.

Who's this? A seller by his sack, for sure.

ROGER: Peddler, I've watched you setting off many a time

To sell to John of the Wood - you know it's a crime,

Which I shall report to the Abbot unless..

You take me with you. Your answer?

PEDDLER: Yes.

(Calling) Jan Oo, Jan Oo.

VOICE OFF: Jan Oo, Jan Oo.

ROGER: Is that an echo?

PEDDLER: That's John Hood.

His voice will guide us through the darkness of the wood.

In JOHN HOOD, LITTLE ROBIN, MARIAN and his OUTLAWS

JOHN: Peddler, who's this? Nobody strange

Must come as a free man into our range.

PEDDLER: He' s a poor seller of trifles, like me.

WILL SCARLET: Open your sack, then, and let us all see.

ROGER opens his sack and spreads out jewellery etc. on a cloth

ROGER: Trinkets and jewellery, silver and gold.

JOHN: Over here Marian.

ROGER: Have one to hold.

As he hands a broach to MARIAN she recognises him

MARIAN: Roger the Cruel!

ROGER THE CRUEL stabs MARIAN

JOHN: Take him away.

WILL SCARLET and LITTLE ROBIN take ROGER away

JOHN: Marian, don't leave me.

MARIAN: Jan, how can I stay?

The world's gone dark, the branches wave me

Farewell like friends. Let me be buried

Somewhere in the woods where I loved you,

Under a crag with ivy over,

With white wood-sorrel growing on me,

And whortleberries with juice like this

Dark blood. Promise me.

JOHN: I promise then.

MARIAN: You too, when you must leave this life, choose

Somewhere under the trees for burial

So the wind may brush from you to me

In leaves and back again with a kiss.

She dies

JOHN: Let's take her up and bury her. Woods

Protect her and make us one in death.

Out ALL with MARIAN'S body except PEDDLER

PEDDLER: (Calling off) What shall I do?

JOHN: (Calling from off) Never come into my sight again.

PEDDLER: What have I done?

VOICE: Betrayed the trust of Jan Oo

So shall he ever you.

Out PEDDLER

Dumbshow: OUTLAWS march ROGER THE CRUEL to the gates of Tavistock Abbey

and hang him from a tree, with a notice pinned on his back: ABBOT THOMAS BE

WARNED

In JOHN and ROBIN

ROBIN: What shall we do now, Jan?

JOHN: Go east, Rob,

Past Exeter. I've lost all stomach

For the Forest.

ROBIN: You're not looking well.

JOHN: I have a cousin there, a prioress,

Good with medicines. She shall cure me.

11

In PRIORESS

PRIORESS: Cousin Jan, what are you doing here?

And looking so pale. I must hide you.

Here, here's a bed for you to lie on.

Let me feel your head. You're feverish.

I'll fetch a bowl and a knife.

ROBIN: Jan, eh?

JOHN: It's alright, I trust her. She knows best.

PRIORESS: Stay still while I bleed you. Marian?

JOHN: Dead.

PRIORESS: I'm sorry Jan. I didn't know.

How did it happen?

JOHN: She was murdered.

One of Abbot Thomas' henchmen.

PRIORESS: I'm sorry, Jan. How dreadful for you.

All finished - good. Now go in and eat.

I'll take you down to the kitchens. Come.

In ABBOT THOMAS

In PRIORESS

ABBOT: Prioress, I have information

That you are harbouring an outlaw

By the name of John Hood, of the Wood,

Jan Oo, whatever he calls himself.

What have you to say to that?

PRIORESS: Nothing.

Whoever begs charity receives.

I ask no questions.

ABBOT: Well, nor shall I.

Suffice it to say that I have friends

Who will remove you from this priory

At the first whisper you've protected

John Hood from justice. And your nuns too.

PRIORESS: Remove us then, we'll become hermits.

ABBOT: And I might mention the small matter

Of your illegitimate son, adopted

By my monks?

PRIORESS: What?

ABBOT: The world could know it.

PRIORESS: No. As a Christian man you wouldn't.

ABBOT: I would.

PRIORESS: Publish then on your press.

Tell all the world. God will forgive me.

ABBOT: And of course his place at the Abbey

Would... be forfeited.

PRIORESS: You'd turn him out?

Pause. She stares at the ABBOT and he stares back

What do you want of me? The man's ill.

ABBOT: Make sure, then, he doesn't get better.

Out ABBOT

In JOHN helped by ROBIN.

PRIORESS: Lie down Jan, I must bleed you again.

ROBIN: But he's still weak from the last bleeding.

PRIORESS: I say he needs to be bled again.

Don't you trust me?

ROBIN: What do you say Jan?

JOHN: Of course I trust her. She's my cousin.

We have known each other all our lives.

JOHN lies down

PRIORESS: This won't hurt. Just a small incision -

There - to purge the fever from you.

JOHN: (Looking into her eyes long and hard)

That cut was deeper than the first one.

PRIORESS: I failed to draw enough out of you.

Now Robin, you keep him company,

Make sure for me the vein stays open

Until I come back.

ROBIN: It's flowing fast.

JOHN: Alice...

PRIORESS: Yes Jan. I'll come to you soon.

Out PRIORESS

JOHN: Robin, quickly and bind up my arm.

I saw the pain of dishonesty

In her eyes, though I fear it's too late.

ROBIN binds up his arm

ROBIN: I'll kill her.

JOHN: No. Let her be. I feel faint.

ROBIN: Jan, don't leave us. We need you.

JOHN: Robin

I'm not leaving you. Bring me my bow

While I've still the strength left to aim it.

Point me at the window. Where this lands

Mark it and under the nearest tree

Bury my body. But the moaning

Of this arrow will sound for ever

In the brush of the wind in the trees.

Oo, Oo, it'll call my name, Jan Oo.

So I shall be with you in spirit.

He shoots and falls back dead

LEAH: So Mr Ford...

FORD: Call me Jack. My friends did.

LEAH: Jack then. What about you? You didn't write Hood plays, did you?

FORD: Not beyond making them up as a child. Actually I think it was sister Jane who

made up most of the one you've just watched.

LEAH: What other plays were there around on Dartmoor when you were growing up?

Any mystery plays?

STEVE: Thrillers?

LEAH: Religious plays, you know like the York Cycle.

STEVE: You'll have to excuse her, Jack, she's a bit of a boffin.

FORD: I never saw a mystery play on Dartmoor. They were before my time. I

remember my grandfather telling me about the mystery plays they used to perform in

Ashburton on the feast of Corpus Christi. And my father talked about seeing a

professional performance there by the children of Totnes at the beginning of Queen

Elizabeth's reign. But he was too young to recall what they performed. Those plays,

like the Hood plays, were paid for by the church authorities, and when the church

became Protestant instead of Catholic, they were thought undignified and so in most

places died out.