For context, The Tragicall Historie of Jacobus and Ricarda, was introduced in a previous scene I did as a Daily Writing Exercise. The short version is that Kat is conscripted into playing the lead. The male lead, which she is less than enthused about.
Copyright J.B. Norman
Invited backstage along with her sister after the debut of Sir Sandford Whitehead’s latest play, The Tragicall Historie of Jacobus and Ricarda, Dunstana approaches the playwright. Meanwhile, Kat is heading to the dressing room as quickly as possible and trying to avoid anybody else glimpsing her dressed up as a man.
“Katherine!” Amara calls, chasing after her best friend. “Wait! You simply must come out to meet your adoring audience! You’re already the talk of the theatre season!”
Kat slams the door of the dressing shut.
“Katherine!” Amara continues, tugging on the doorknob. “That was the finest stage debut ever to grace Porthaven!”
There’s a loud crash from inside the dressing room.
“Are you barricading yourself inside?” Amara cries. “Are you really that opposed to meeting your fans?”
“I’m dressed like a dude!” Kat protests through the window.
As Sandford pushes his way through a crowd of theatre aficionados, critics, and students patting him on the back, shaking his hand, and acclaiming his latest masterwork, all the while still dabbing their moistened eyes with their handkerchiefs, Dunstana tugs him by the sleeve to get his attention.
“So, hey, Mr. Whiteford,” Dunstana says, looking up at the playwright. “That was great.”
“Thank you, my dear,” Sir Sandford Whitehead says, holding his tongue at her mangling of his name.
Dunstana nods. “Yeah,” she continues. “That was the funniest play I’ve ever seen! And, like, I don’t even like plays. I don’t like them less than I don’t like Opera, though, but maybe that’s just because they’re not, like, eight days long.”
Sandford blinks down at her. “Say again?” he asks, the famous writer at an uncharacteristic loss for words.
“Your play,” Dunstana says, slowly and clearly.
“Yes?”
“Was great.”
“Right.”
“And it was, like, super-duper funny. I loved it.”
“Now, that’s the part I don’t quite understand,” Sandford admits. “You think my play was funny?”
Dunstana nods.
“My heart-wrenching, gut-punching tragedy? That play? That’s the one you thought was so funny?” he asks.
Dunstana nods.
“My tragedy where everybody from the two leads to the fishwife to the fishwife’s dog died?”
Dunstana nods.
Sandford frowns. “You’ve lost me. It wasn’t supposed to be funny. It’s supposed to be explore previously uncharted ground for the genre of tragedy.”
“Yeah, but why can’t a tragedy be funny? It’s not like there’s some rule about it,” Dunstana offers.
Sandford coughs into his elbow.
“Perhaps we need to define our terms better. Comedy is funny. Tragedy is sad,” Sandford says. “A comedy intends to evoke emotions of joy in the audience. A tragedy, the opposite. A tragedy is meant to leave the audience teary-eyed and shaken, all the better to appreciate the human condition. Hence, why everybody died in dramatic fashion. Tell, my dear, what’s so funny about Margrave Marchgrayve being impaled by a swordfish? Or Baron Baronius being crushed by a toppling mainmast? Or Jacobus and Ricarda taking poison?”
“Yeah,” Dunstana notes, “but they were getting hurt, and it was funny because they’re not me.”
This is another scene that needs to be massaged a little to work in a real story, because Dunstana comes across as an absolute psychopath, rather than just missing the point.
“They’re getting hurt, but they’re not me” is basically why slapstick works, but I think I need a way to phrase it less Criminal Minds villainly…
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