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Characters:
1. First Sailor Ivan
2. Second Sailor Paul
3. Third Sailor Carey
4. Fourth Sailor Peter
5. Fifth Sailor
6. Sixth Sailor Jones
7. Cook
8. Captain
9. First Elf Jack
10. Second Elf
11. Third Elf
12. Fourth Elf
13. Fifth Elf
14. Queen Elf
15. Lemonpeel
16. Elf Guard
First Scene
Ship
the sailors are moving back and forth on stage, to make it look like the deck of a ship being rocked by a storm. From the wings buckets of water are thrown on stage as waves.
Captain: Batten the hatches! lower the sails! brace yourselves, lads, for Neptune’s wrath!
First Sailor: run, swim! throw the women and children over board! The cook goes down with the ship!
Cook: why, exactly?
First Sailor: because the food you cook tastes like dirty socks!
Second Sailor: What’s going on?
First Sailor: We’re going down!
Second Sailor: This ship can go under water? Isn’t that dangerous?
First Sailor: Unless you’re a fish, you fool.
Second Sailor: I don’t think I am.
Captain: Cut the life boats! Look to the treasure! Every man for himself!
First Sailor: We’re lost! We’re doomed! We’re swallowed by the sea!
Captain: stop whining, ye dogs! I’d make you walk the plank but it’s already underwater.
Second Sailor: Quick, Ivan, teach me how to swim!
First Sailor: Just watch the people who are sinking, mate, and do the opposite of them.
Captain: Take as much treasure as you can, and put it in your pockets.
Cook: But Captain, won’t that weigh us down and make us sink?
Captain: No, you’ll be lighter for thinking how rich you’ll be when you get ashore.
Second Sailor: Shore, you say?
Captain: The look-out saw an island off the starboard bow, just before the storm set in. So take the gold, and swim, and hope the sharks are friendly.
Everyone runs off stage
Second Scene
Forest
Dancing around the maypole. Lots of sticks with bright colored ribbons. Music.
First Elf: Don’t you ever get tired of dancing?
Second Elf: Why should we, Jack? It’s what we do.
First Elf: It’s all we do.
Second Elf: There’s casting spells…
First Elf: And chasing shadows and speaking to streams.
Second Elf: and teaching the fish to fly…
First Elf: But there has to be something else.
Second Elf: It’s peaceful here.
Fist Elf: I’m tired of peace. I want adventure, sails, swordfights, sunlight, something other than leaves and dancing.
Third Elf: All Hail the Queen!
[queen enters, with two guards]
All Elves: Hail, your majesty!
Queen: Hail, sweet elves, and happy forest dwellers. May air be over you, water beside you, and grass between your toes. [lemonpeel kneels] What news, Lemonpeel?
Lemonpeel: Early this morning, before the sun had spun itself in yellow threads up from the sea, when I was teaching some shore-lizards about moonlight on the rocks (why it makes them light but doesn’t make them warm)…
Elf Guard: Be brief, peel; your stories take longer to tell than they took to happen.
Lemonpeel: Well, I was speaking to the crabs and lizards, who love to listen to all I say, when the night owl raised a question, and I was looking out to sea. And that’s when I saw the very strange thing.
First Elf: What did you see?
Lemonpeel: It was like a ship, but wasn’t.
Second Elf: How could it be like a ship, but not?
Lemonpeel: It was shaped like a ship, but it was upside down.
Queen: Upside down?
Lemonpeel: Upside down and rightside up and sideways and slantways and on it’s head.
First Elf: All at once?
Lemonpeel: No: all these things by turns, and finally it was nothing at all, because I saw it under a storm and tossed by terrible winds, and at the end it was covered by waves like the wet tounges of a hundered cats, and sunk beneath them.
Queen: How dreadful! Tell me, did anyone survive?
Lemonpeel: Yes, your Majesty, they rolled and dripped an hour later on the shore. They would have been two crabs.
Elf Guard: Two crabs survived a shipwreck?
Lemonpeel: No, they would have been two crabs, because they had sixteen legs. As it was they were men, and they were eight.
Second Elf: Where are they now?
Lemonpeel: Asleep, well-salted, and lighter than before. I took these stones from their pockets while they slept.
Queen: Well done, if not well said. We’ll let them sleep for now and see what kind of men they are when they awake.
Third Scene
Beach
3rd Pirate: Wake up, Peter, we’re home.
4th Pirate: Has the sun cooked your brains, you fool? Our ship was blasted apart last night by waves, and we’re cast alone upon some barren shore.
3rd Pirate: Exactly what I mean, my friend. Without our ship we have no hope of leaving this new land, strange and friendless it may be. This, therefore, is our home, and I welcome you to its shores.
4th Pirate: How many are we?
3rd Pirate: Seven, it seems. Six sailors and the cook. The captain is no more.
4th Pirate: [cries] Oh! The Treasure! The gold and rubies salvaged from the ship! It’s gone, it’s been pilfered from my pockets!
3rd Pirate: Perhaps some sea-god stole it while you swam.
4th Pirate: No, I checked that it was safe when we came on shore. The other sailors must have stole it while I slept. I’ll slit their throats. [moves to kill 5th and 6th Pirates]
3rd Pirate: Quiet, Peter, they wake. We’ll pretend that we are sleeping and listen to what they say.
4th Pirate: And when I hear them boast of the stolen gold I’ll spring up and spill their blood. [they pretend to sleep. 5th and 6th Pirates wake.]
5th Pirate: Tom, are your eyes open?
6th Pirate: They are.
5th Pirate: It’s good that we woke first, for I don’t trust these other pirates, and it’s likely they would have done us some harm while we were sleeping.
6th Pirate: You think they would have hurt us?
5th Pirate: As sure as the sun is burning overhead. They would have killed us and robbed us of our treasure, which we dragged and sputtered to bring on shore.
6th Pirate: Scoundrels!
5th Pirate: Thieves!
6th Pirate: Do you think we might, then, do the same to them, since after all it’s how they would have treated us.
5th Pirate: It’s only fair, I think, that the would-be murderers be killed, and the would-be thieves be robbed. Draw your sword. We’ll do this quickly.
6th Pirate: Wait! They stir! Quick, feign sleep. [they pretend to sleep. 1st Pirate and the Cook wake.]
1st Pirate: I swear, cook, I’m hungry enough I could almost eat you soups and not complain.
Cook: And I swear, Ivan, I’m thirsty enough I could drink this sand. Strange, after all the saltwater I swallowed last night.
1st Pirate: What can we do? I’ve read stories of men like this, stranded on dry islands without food, starving slowly and sucking on rocks for desperation.
Cook: What happened to them?
1st Pirate: In the end they drew lots, and the one that lost was devoured by the other.
Cook: How horrible! Disgusting! Do you think such a thing could happen to us?
1st Pirate: I’m certain of it. As soon as we wake I bet the other pirates will start rubbing lemon on our skin to make us more tasty. We’re the largest so naturally we’ll go first.
Cook: Then there’s only one thing to do. We have to kill one of them now, so when the others awake they’ll already have a ready store of food, and thus we ourselves will escape from death.
1st Pirate: Your thinking is as deep as your great stomach. We’ll kill them first and save ourselves. [draw and move towards 4th Pirate]
4th Pirate: Back, you devils! You’ll not be making a meal of me! [all except 2nd Pirate rise] I call all of you to witness. Ivan and the Cook would have killed a defenseless Pirate while he slept!
6th Pirate: Ha! Exactly what you would have done to us! I heard you plotting while you thought I was asleep. They would have soaked the beach with blood!
4rd Pirate: Only because you, you dirty thieves, stole all our gold!
5th Pirate: You would have killed us!
Cook: You would have eaten us!
4th Pirate: Thieves!
6th Pirate: Cannibals!
1st: Rogues! [General battle. 1st Pirate fights 6th. 3rd Pirate fights 5th. 4th Pirate fights with Cook. Captain comes on stage]
Captain: Stop! Enough! Put up your swords you scurvy knaves, or I’ll break your bones myself!
2nd Pirate: [waking up] What’s all the noise about? I was trying to get some sleep.
6th Pirate: They started it. [third pirate sticks out his tongue]
Captian: Ivan, tell me what this quarrel was about.
1st Pirate: Starvation, captain. It drove us to madness.
Captian: look over there, Ivan. What do you see?
1st Pirate: Trees, captain.
Captain: And on the branches of the trees?
1st Pirate: umm, fruit.
Captain: Exactly. The best I’ve ever tasted. And in the forest there are streams gleaming with silver fish. Why don’t you and the cook go prepare us all a meal. [1st Pirate and Cook leave] Peter, what have you to say?
4th Pirate: We fought because they stole our treasure, captain. It was taken from our pockets while we slept.
5th Pirate: It wasn’t us. Our pockets are as empty as your own.
Captain: The gold was stolen, but not by them. I woke early and found footprints where you lay. Someone had come and stole our treasure, then went back to the forest. I followed them into the trees, but felt the wood to be enchanted. No wind blew, and darkness hung from branches with the leaves. Strange sounds and lights twinkled in the grass, and my own shadow seemed begging to return. And on the beach I find you here, blades strained for one another’s throats.
6th Pirate: If someone stole our treasure, we’ve got to get it back!
Captain: We need to know who these strangers are. Paul, Carey, stay on the beach in case the tide brings anything from the ship up onto shore. The rest of you come with me, we’ll follow the forest trail, and find out who these islanders be.
Fourth Scene
Forest
Elves report to queen what they saw from the trees
send them to make them lose their memories, bring them there
[Queen with guards, seated.]
5th Elf: Are there really pirates on the island?
6th Elf: There are. That’s what I’ve heard. And the most stubbly, salty, scary, rough, rascally, and sea-blown men you could ever imagine.
5th Elf: Do you think we’ll be safe?
6th Elf: We can always hide under rocks and pretend we’re frogs. Look, here come the others to report to the queen.
3rd Elf: Your majesty, we watched the Pirates, like you asked.
Queen: Tell me what you saw.
4th Elf: It was horrible, queen. We almost fell from the tree where we were hiding.
3rd Elf: Two of them woke first, and they missed the stones that Lemonpeel stole from their pockets in the night. They blamed the other sailors, and would have killed them there with no more thought, but two other Pirates began to wake, so the first two pretended to be asleep.
Queen: How awful!
4th Elf: And from the tree branch where we sat, we heard this new pair plan to slay the rest.
Queen: Is it possible?
3rd Elf: But another two Pirates woke, before the murders could took place. But these were the worst of all, because they wanted not just to kill the other pirates, but to cook them and eat them for their lunch!
Queen: How did it end?
4th Elf: They all did rise and fall to shouting, and then drew their swords to hack one another limb from limb. The noise was such that all the crabs buried their heads in the sand, and the birds flew from their nests, and we thought we would be discovered.
Elf Guard: Where are they now?
3rd Elf: They are on their way this very moment. They found the tracks that our Lemon left and are stomping through the woods to find our homes.
Queen: It’s clear what must be done. We’ll use our spells to save ourselves. Fly my elves, and intercept them in the woods. Enchant them, blind them, bind them, wrap them in your magic. Make them forget who they are, and from where they came. Their swords will bend to elfin dust. When their eyes are cleared of memories and hate, bring them here to me, and they’ll join us in our dances.
Fourth Scene
Forest Path
Captain: What did I tell you, lads? Is this forest not the scariest place you’ve ever been? Does it not make your skin shiver and the hair on your feet stand on end? Look at the way the trees weave the shadows.
4th Pirate: Aye, Captain. Give me a storm on the sea instead of this. Give me whales and sharks and giant squid, I’d prefer them all to these still trees.
6th Pirate: What kind of men do you think live in a place like this? Are they drarves with hands as big as horses, and beards so thick they block out the sun?
5th Pirate: I’m sure they are, Jones. That or monsters with the bodies of lions, and the faces of hawks, that lay giant eggs in the cliffs and then roll them down to the sea.
6th Pirate: Or Cyclops, with eyes so big that when they blink they cause hurricanes. [strange noises and music]
Captain: Do you hear that men? Draw your swords. Be on the ready. I fear the trees themselves will come alive. [calls] who’s there? [more noises. during this is the dance/ casting of spell]
4th Pirate: Who are you?
Elves: [like an echo] Who are you?
6th Pirate: Who are we? I thought we were...
Captain: Where are you?
Elves: Where are you?
5th Pirate: We’re in a forest, I think.
4th Pirate: We’re in a forest.
Elves: Where are you from?
4th Pirate: I don’t remember.
6th Pirate: I don’t remember.
Elves: Stay with us.
Pirates: We’ll stay with you.
Fifth Scene
Beach
[2nd and 3rd Pirate on the beach.]
3rd Pirate: Do you ever get tired of being a Pirate, Paul?
2nd: Why should I, Carey? It’s what I am.
3rd Pirate: But don’t you ever feel like there could be something more?
2nd Pirate: What more do you want? We have floating on the sea, burning villages, stealing treasure, fighting with swords…
3rd Pirate: and keeping a lookout for land in the crow’s nest at sunset
2nd Pirate: And catching fish and eating oranges.
3rd Pirate: But there has to be something else.
2nd Pirate: We have lots of adventure.
3rd Pirate: I’m tired of adventure. I want long days of lying on rocks, singing songs, resting like this in sand and shadows.
2nd Pirate: What’s that? Someone’s coming.
[enter Elves with Pirates under spell. 2nd and 3rd Pirate hide.]
3rd Pirate: It’s the rest of the pirates, but something’s wrong.
2nd Pirate: They’re enchanted, they’re asleep, they’re under a spell.
3rd: And who are those with them? I’ve never seen such strange little things.
Queen: Yes, our friends seem much nicer now with the elf dust in their eyes.
3rd Elf: What shall we have them do, your Majesty? Pick berries from the bushes? Fan us with leaves from the coconut trees?
2nd Elf: Let’s keep them forever as pets and have them catch us fish and wash our clothes.
2nd Pirate: They’re prisoners! They’re slaves! Look at their eyes!
3rd Pirate: Those must be the ones that stole the gold.
2nd Pirate: I’ll get it back. I’ll save the other Pirates.
3rd Pirate: Paul, no!
2nd Pirate: Prepare, evil creatures, to be sliced like fruit! I’ll teach you not to use magic on my friends!
[2nd Pirate charges Elves. Elf guards cast a spell, throwing leaves from their pockets. 2nd Pirate slows down and then stops, frozen.]
Queen: Oh, look! Another one of our guests has arrived.
4th Elf: How nice he looks like that! He’ll make a wonderful statue for the garden. Let’s fix him up a bit.
[the Elves drape ribbons over him, move his arms, change his expression, etc.]
Queen: Well done, my little Elves. Lemonpeel, how many Pirates did you say were tossed up on the beach?
Lemonpeel: Eight, your majesty.
Elf Guard: That means there is one still missing.
Queen: we should find him, I think, before he causes trouble.
3rd Pirate: It is me, your Majesty. I am the last.
2nd Elf: Quick, cast your spells! Turn him to stone! Turn him to sand! Make him think he’s a snake or spider, and slither in the grass.
3rd Pirate: No, wait!
Queen: Dryroot, wait! He’s a brave little fellow, and he seems to mean no harm.
3rd Pirate: Your majesty, I lay my sword at your feet, and swear I’d sooner slay the moon than harm your friends.
5th Elf: Well said, good pirate. You talk like one of us.
3rd Pirate: Believe me, we come to you in peace.
Elf Guard: Tell us, then, why as soon as you woke you scared the gulls with the sound of your swords, fighting one another, and then trampled through the forest, following the tracks to our safe shadows.
3rd Pirate: Forgive us, but it was because of the gold that was stolen from our pockets.
Queen: Gold? What is gold, and what use does it have?
Lemonpeel: I think he means these bright stones that I stole from their pockets. I only wanted them to throw into shallow pools and watch the way the glowed under sunlight. If they cause so much trouble, here, you can have them back.
3rd Pirate: You’ve never heard of gold? You have no money on this island?
3rd Elf: We’re not sure what you mean. We have plenty of rocks, but none that look like this. Our brooks are lined with them, and they are polished by the water.
3rd Pirate: This truly is a peaceful place.
Queen: If we release your friends, will they stay calm and not attack?
3rd Pirate: I believe they will.
[elves release pirates from enchantments]
3rd Pirate: Please, pirates, leave your swords where they are. These are our friends, and will bring us no harm. Look, they’ve returned the gold, and all of us are safe.
Queen: Rub your eyes, our friends, and return now to yourselves. The spell we cast was only out of fear: we thought you would find our homes, and shake us from our trees. You have my word that we will not hurt you, and we ask only one thing in return. By the time the sun springs again from the Eastern sea, you will have left our lands and not return.
Captain: Dear fairy, elf, whatever it is you are. I am the captain, I speak for my crew. We would love to obey you, and leave the island, but the problem is we have no ship. It sank last night; that is why we are here.
6th Elf: There is an old wizard, Erasmus, that lives in a cave not far from here. He has three heads, each one wiser than any mortals. He has such power there is not a stone, leaf, or living creature with wing or fin that doesn’t listen to what he says. [note: I’m not sure if double negatives translate. Maybe: “every stone…etc…listens to what he says”].
Queen: We’ll go to him and see what he can do.
6th Scene
Beach by hermit’s cave
I’ll finish this scene, the last one, soon. All that happens is that the wizard casts a spell and the ship rises out of the water. Then the 3rd Pirate and the 1st Elf decide to switch places.