Covid-Crossed Lovers....

 Romeo and Juliet

Scene 1. A street

ABRAHAM

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON

I do bite my thumb, sir.

ABRAHAM

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON

[Aside to GREGORY] Is the law of our side, if I say ay?

Enter PRINCE, with Attendants

PRINCE

Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,

Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,

You should not be mixing in a public place

Know you not this virus is real?

Where are your masks, where social distancing?

Get thee home, for there will be no appeal

If charges are brought against you for ignoring

The restrictions of this lockdown….

MONTAGUE

My Lord, I will send them home with all due haste.

Exit Prince

LADY MONTAGUE

O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?

Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

BENVOLIO

Still whining about Rosaline somewhere I think

I’ll try to cure him – it’s driving me to drink….

Scene 2. Another street

BENVOLIO

Tomorrow at the feast of Capulet's

Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,

With all the admired beauties of Verona:

Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,

Compare her face with some that I shall show,

And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

ROMEO

One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun

Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.

BENVOLIO

Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,

Herself poised with herself in either eye:

ROMEO

I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,

But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.

Scene 3 The Capulets’ House

LADY CAPULET

Tell me, daughter Juliet,

How stands your disposition to be married?

JULIET

It is an honour that I dream not of.

LADY CAPULET

Well, think of marriage now; Thus then in brief:

The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

This night you shall behold him at our feast;

So shall you share all that he doth possess,

By having him, making yourself no less.

NURSE

No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men. (Sniggers)

Enter a Servant

Servant

Good madam, your husband seeks you downstairs

He’s bloody annoyed.

Enter Lord Capulet

CAPULET

The Prince says we are not to have our ball:

Even though we are to be masked, as the law demands

Indoors, ‘tis said, thirty folk may mix

As long as we with social distancing and masks comply.

'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,

Come pentecost as quickly as it will,

Some five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.

But now the rules have changèd yet again

And into lockdown one more time we plunge

So tonight’s party’s been called off.

Blast the Prince, the virus and all to hell.

All stomp off.

Scene 4. Yet another street

MERCUTIO

Well that’s that, no Rosaline for you tonight 

Another lockdown has put paid to our evening fun.

ROMEO

I dream'd a dream to-night.

MERCUTIO

And so did I.

ROMEO

Well, what was yours?

MERCUTIO

That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

But hear my dream, for from it you’ve made good escape.

I dreamed about the Capulet Montague feud

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the sound and clamour as their parents weep,

For, but their children's end, nought could remove,

Was now the two hours' traffic of my sleep;

ROMEO

What a stupid dream

BENVOLIO

Nay – I dreamed too…

That you had killed Tybalt and been banished to Mantua…

ROMEO

Well he would have deserved it, bighead that he is….

BENVOLIO

…and you returned to Verona to find the gracious Juliet dead.

ROMEO

Who??

MERCUTIO

Nay, in my dream she did not die, but slept…

BENVOLIO

I foresaw your death too Mercutio…

MERCUTIO

What?? A plague on both your houses.

But Romeo in my dream did kill himself.

BENVOLIO

See – you’re better off out of it mate.

ROMEO

Yeah – guess you’re right. Come on, lets get some beers in and watch the football.

EXEUNT.