The Bard

by Donald L. Renfrew (July 2026)

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Ari Mann was proud.

He was proud of ability as a writer, his miraculous talent of sizing people up and finding their voices, devising plots, and writing screenplays that had won not one, not two, but three Oscars.  Hollywood insiders called him The Bard. He was proud of his status as one of those Hollywood insiders, which came by both birth—he was the only child of Lara Soliel, the most beautiful actress in Hollywood through the late Seventies and early Eighties, and Mitch Mann, the legendary director and producer—and his own credits as a screenwriter. He was proud that while most the Hollywood brats of his cohort fell to drink and drugs he had never been a lush or addict but rather the impartial observer and chronicler of their escapades. He was proud of his good looks and physique. He was proud of his erstwhile womanizing, and even more proud of his current stoicism, having eschewed the temptations of the flesh for a disciplined life. He was even proud of his lifelong bodyguard Doug Baker, but then again who wouldn’t want to be the bodyguard of the great Ari Mann?

He was proud that he had been invited aboard the Shazzam, the world’s largest luxury yacht, owned by movie mogul Victor Harlan. While Mann had house in Malibu, an apartment in New York, always stayed at five-star hotels when traveling or on set, and flew first class when not aboard a private jet, Harlan’s wealth was at yet another level: not only a better house in Malibu and a bigger apartment in New York but his own private jet, a 12,000 square foot “cabin” in Idaho, a chalet in Switzerland, and a condominium in Singapore the better to interface with the growing Asian market. And then there was the Shazzam.

The Shazzam was largest private yacht in existence. It cost of over half a billion dollars, had an annual running cost of fifty to seventy million, and could house 36 guests and 60 crew members. The main saloon was over 90 feet long with no pillars and high ceilings giving it the feel of a grand ballroom. Interior surfaces of marble and hand-carved panels of rare wood trimmed with gold accents contrasted with custom made leather and velvet furnishings. The walls were adorned with fine art. There were multiple dining areas, a pool, a yoga room, a helipad, and a private cinema. The cabins were all luxury suites. Even seeing the interior was a privilege as Harlan did not provide tours or allow photographs and the design team was under strict confidentiality agreements.

Mann savored the perfect Mediterranean evening and the view of Port Hercule in Monoco from the Shazzam’s sundeck, with the glittering terraced city sandwiched between the vibrant blue water and forest of the other yacht masts in the foreground and the Alpes Maritimes in the background. It almost lived up to the view that had been included in his first Oscar winner from twenty-five years ago. His revery was interrupted when director and producer Mike Flynn joined him at the railing.

“Ari! Thinking about jumping?”

“Hello Mike,” Mann greeted. Flynn had put on a few more pounds since Mann had last seen him two years ago. Mann wryly thought that Flynn looked ten years older than his age while he himself looked ten years younger. The advantage of good genes but even more of his willpower.

“Here for the week?” Flynn asked.

“Just a couple of days. Harlan and I are negotiating over a script.”

“Shouldn’t your agent take care of that?”

Mann frowned. “Negotiations broke down. I need to clear up a few things.”

“Rumor has it you’re asking for ten million?”

“Where did you hear that?” Mann asked sharply.

“C’mon Ari,” Flynn joked with a playful shove on Mann’s shoulder. “This is Hollywood. People talk.”

“Too much,” Mann said.

“You really think you’ll get it? That’s a record number.”

“I’m well aware. And of course I’ll get it. It’s an Ari Mann script. And it will be great. I’m thinking number 4.”

Flynn’s eyebrows raised. “That good? It’s been a minute since the last one.”

“I’ve taken a break, as you well know, to doctor scripts for streaming services.”

“You won’t win an Oscar doing that,” Flagg said.

“That’s one thing we can agree on, Mike. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to dinner.”

Mann walked away, not in the direction of the cocktail party, but toward the aft side of the sundeck to gather his thoughts after his encounter with Flynn. He hoped Flynn could detect none of the panic he felt.

Mann had lived through—indeed, he’d participated in—the first transformation of movies during which the bulk of references and themes shifted from the Bible, myths, and classic novels to prior movies and popular culture. Another shift had happened with scripts based comic books, videogames and even theme park rides. And now TikTok videos. Mann thought all this had gone on far too long. He wanted to write a script for a film without all the CGI nonsense, dealing with a real person who had something to say, and moreover someone who could say it in a thoughtful and compelling way. Of all the possible subject for such a script, Mann thought, he was the best.

Mann was certain that it would be not only the best script ever written but a lock for his fourth Oscar. He was confident it would bring the fans back into the movie theaters.  He wanted people to sit in the seats the way they once did, shoulder to shoulder in the dark with strangers, watching the large shimmering screen and listening to the actors voice his words. He felt it would be a suprise blockbuster, and perhaps even be recognized as a new genre of film to be analyzed and imitated and above all admired by others…

Except for the fact that he couldn’t write it! Mann had never had writer’s block. He’d always opened up the laptop or more frequently just started dictating dialogue and description which would come to him from … where? He didn’t know and didn’t care. But while he was able to think of scenes—it wasn’t hard, after all, they were simply the scenes of his own life—he couldn’t get a bead on who he was, not what sort of character he was, but who he was. He could describe the character: charming yet reserved, masculine yet graceful, laconic yet witty. But not who he was.

He placed himself in the dead center of his world and was master of it and yet when he sat down to write about himself, to explain who he truly was … nothing! What words could he use? All words applied and no words applied. When he wrote screenplays there was no limit to the characters he could write: truck driver to assassin, waitress to princess, mail room clerk to studio executive, from the humblest to the loftiest. But as for himself? Nada.

He might as well head to dinner.

***

A shaven-headed, muscular man wearing an overtight tight black T-shirt and black jeans stuck out his hand as he took a seat next to Mann at dinner.

“Jax Calder,” the man said.

“Of course,” Mann said. “Ari Mann.”

Everyone knew tech mogul and billionaire Jax Calder. Mann figured that Calder and his security detail had come over from Calder’s own mega yacht. While Harlan’s fortune was impressive, Calder’s dwarfed Harlan’s by much more than Harlan’s did Mann’s. Billionaires such as Calder had wealth on a different level, exceeding the GDP of many countries. Calder was rumored to have a private bunker inside of a mountain which would house Calder, his family, and his security squad and allow them to ride out any apocalypse.

Not, Mann mused, that money was anything but a marker. He’d met plenty of billionaires. They were good at making money. Sometimes they also knew something about one or two fields: tech, oil, manufacturing, finance, whatever. But their real talent was turning money into more money. Mann found them one-dimensional and boring and unadmirable and therefore wrote them into his scripts as such. It was one of Mann’s greatest pleasures to put people he knew into his scripts as characters.

“Lara Soliel’s son, right?” Calder asked.

“And screenwriter of Fade to Black, River’s End, and Whispers in the Rain. Three Oscar winning screenplays,” Mann replied.

“Right, right!” Calder agreed. “Classics! Modern classics! Are you here for the shoot?”

“Shadows of Monaco?” Mann asked. “No, I’ve got another project to discuss with Harlan.”

“Pitch meeting, huh?” Calder asked.

“Hardly!” Mann protested. He considered explaining that the opportunity to take on a screenplay by Ari Mann was an honor with no need of a tawdry “pitch meeting.”

“Right, right,” Calder said.

The server put a caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes, and a balsamic reduction in front of them. The billionaire tucked in with gusto.

“Could you take this back and bring me some raw vegetables?” Mann asked. “No dressing.”

“Appetizer not to your liking?” Calder asked after the server left.

“I’m a practicing Stoic,” Mann said.

“Oh yeah, like Dorsy and Ferriss, huh?”

“Yes, there are others that recognize the value in the discipline as well.”

“Right, right,” Calder agreed. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“When your mother was shooting The True Sentinal, was she sleeping with Jason Langford? I think that was when Langford was married to Marlene Voss, before he left her for Cass Drayton. Your Mom and Langford had such chemistry in the movie! It’s hard to believe they weren’t hooking up, you know?”

Mann looked at Calder. Didn’t Calder know that his mother was married to his father at that time? Mann took a deep breath. “My mother was a consummate actress,” he said in a neutral tone. “It was her job to have ‘chemistry’ on the screen.”

“Right, right,” Calder agreed. “So you’re telling me they weren’t doing it?”

Mann sighed. It was going to be a long night of revisiting Hollywood gossip from decades ago. As if that meant anything now. Why was everyone interested in who his mother slept with? Mann relaxed his face and smiled at the billionaire.

“I’m not saying she did or didn’t,” Mann said. “Who’s to know whether all those fireworks on the set came before or after or without any off screen action? Now Cass Drayton, on the other hand, she was a known minx.” Mann went so far as to jab Calder in the ribs. “Know what I mean?” He’d keep the moron entertained through dinner. You could never tell when a billionaire might come in handy when looking for movie financing.

***

Mann sipped his club soda and lemon at the after-dinner party and decided he’d stay until the start of the night’s music: Seraphina, flown in from a tour of Europe and, it was said, charging over a million for the ninety minute show. Mike Flynn and Victor Harlan were having what looked to be a pleasant conversation judging by Flynn’s smile as he waved to him across the expansive deck of the Shazzam. He glanced around the room: Jax Calder, along with the usual assortment of Hollywood producers, directors, and actors. Funny, he didn’t see any other scriptwriters in the crowd. He noticed actresses Everly Quinn and Nova Reyes across the room. He gave a short nod in their direction and smiled at them. They both smiled and waved back. He’d had them both on “the way up” when they’d been desperate to gain whatever advantage they could.

Flynn ended his conversation with Harlan and joined him.

“Hey, Ari,” he said.

“I’m not generally in the business of giving out secrets,” Mann said. “But in this case I’ll make an exception.”

“Please do,” Flynn urged.

“Let’s talk about dinner tonight.”

“What a meal!” Flynn fondly rubbed a hand over his abdomen.

“It started with Tuna Tataki.”

“A fantastic Amuse-Bouche!” Flynn said.

“Was it? How did you know? Because the name told you so. The same goes for the pumpkin bisque, the fresh lobster tails, and the Wagyu steak. All names again. All prepared under the direction of Chef Camille Laurent, trained at Le Cordon Bleu.”

“What’s your point? Harlan is willing to pay for it.”

“Did you noticed when guests stole a glance at the labels on the wine bottles as they praised the Beluga?”

“Did that happen? You don’t miss a trick, do you?”

“It’s part of what makes me the best screenwriter who ever lived,” Mann said.

“Modest, too,” Flynn said.

“The same goes for the Lichtensteins, Stellas, and Chungs on the walls, the Razeto staturary, and the gold plated flatware. All names, not things, for you and the guests at the party. You’ve stopped feeling the flatware and tasting the food and wine and looking at the paintings and statues.”

“How are you different?” Flynn asked. “You’re telling me your not impressed?”

“Of course I’m impressed, but not in the way all the others are impressed. I see things for what they are: symbols of Harlan’s ego and his need to impress others. So instead of stuffing my face worried that I’ll miss out on some name I’ll never again experience, I treat what is there as what it is, words and symbols.”

“But that drains all the pleasure out of it!” Flynn objected.

“It leaves only the experience of it,” Mann replied. “You are controlled by the symbols. I am the one who controls the symbols. That’s what makes me different from all of you.”

“And you think that makes you better than all of us?”

“Think?” Mann asked. He paused. “Well, you asked. And now I’ve told you my secret. But it’s one you’ll never be able to use.”

“Why not?” Flynn asked.

“Because I’m the only one I’ve ever met who can use it.”

“You really think that’s true?” Flynn asked.

“How many Oscars do you have?” Mann asked in return.

“Two. As you well know. And now  you’ll ask me how many you have, and you’ll tell me three. And you’ll point out that no other screenwriter has more than three, and that every actor wants to be written into your screenplays and every director wants your scripts and every producer wants to produce them and every studio wants to buy them. Which results in your record asking price of the script you’re working on.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Mann said.

“I must be smarter than you think I am,” Flynn said.

Mann shook his head. “You’re exactly as smart as I think you are, Mike. And that’s a good thing. In fact, it’s exactly as it should be.” Mann’s gaze flicked from Flynn across the rest of the crowd. The band started tuning. “And now I have to get back to my cabin. While you return to the party and more Delamain cognac and maybe a line or two of zero zero zero or a tab of Tesla, I’m back to work. That’s not the secret but the consequences of the secret. One that you’ll never experience.”

***

Mann walked toward his cabin trying to forget the party and focus on the script he intended to write. Instead his thoughts kept going to the Snickers bars he kept hidden in his suitcase. He needed a few calories, and the desserts offered at dinner were much to complicated to enjoy. After that, he’d likely watch one or two of the videos he had of women actresses, “private” videos that were never meant to be circulated. But Mann had copies. Maybe one of Everly Quinn or Nova Reyes? He had needs to be met, and disposing of a Kleenex was much easier than listening to the frustrations and dreams of an actress, no matter how talented she was in the sack.

When Mann entered to his room, he was stunned to see a short, pudgy, bearded and balding man seated at his desk, writing using an odd pen with a feather at the end. The man was so intent on what he did that he did not look up when Mann entered.

“What the fuck are you doing in my room!” Mann demanded.

Not in the least startled, the man turned from his writing and looked into Mann’s eyes for an uncomfortably long time. He held his gaze so long that Mann looked away, but not before noticing the man wore a preposterous historical wardrobe which looked like it dated from the early Seventeenth Century. He also smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a week.

Before the man could reply Mann recalled that Victor Harlan had said something about meeting with a new writing partner. Could this be the guy? But how did this guy get in his room? And what was he doing in the costume? Was he a part-time actor as well?

“Are you doing a shoot in Monoco?” Mann asked.

The man nodded.

“What is it?” Mann asked.

“All the World’s a Stage,” the man said. “I am content you call me Bill,” he said, bowing his head slightly.

“How did you get into my room?” Mann asked.

“I have my ways.”

“Well I for one don’t appreciate them! I’m going to let Doug hear about this.”

“I am here to do thee service in thy trouble.”

“My trouble?” Mann shot back. “What do you mean, ‘My trouble’? And what’s with the ‘thee’ and ‘thy’? You trying to stay in character?”

“Thy perplexity in playing thyself in the world,” Bill replied, ignoring Mann’s second and third questions.

Mann was, for the first time in years, stunned into silence. “How the hell did you know about that?”

“‘There’s not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee’d’,” Bill replied.

“What? That sounds like it’s from…”

“Macbeth,” Bill supplied.

“Very funny,” Mann said. “But wait a minute. Even if you had a ‘servant fee’d’ that wouldn’t do you any good, because I haven’t talked to anyone about my … difficulties. How did you know I was having trouble writing a screenplay?”

“Thy mind runs a known course,” Bill said.

Mann’s phone rang. It was Victor Harlan.

“Ari!” Harlan greeted. “I wanted to touch bases about that screenplay you mentioned but I didn’t catch you at the party. Come to my cabin so we can discuss.” It was more an order than a question.

“I’ve got to go,” Mann said to Bill.  “Don’t be here when I get back.”

***

Victor Harlan, 68 years old, overweight, with thinning hair and a three week growth of grey beard, sat in his Pininfarina Xten executive chair at his Parnian Spiral Desk in the master suite aboard the Shazzam waiting for Air Mann to show up so he could tell him the news.

The thing about Hollywood, mused Harlan to himself, is that everyone has two kinds of secrets. Those that they want everyone to know, which are only a form of PR, like adultery, drug use, perhaps a bit of domestic abuse (the window kept shifting). And those secrets they wanted no one to know, which would ruin their lives if disclosed. Harlan knew all of the second sort of secrets for every major player in the business.

You didn’t wield power by trading it for sex or other disposable goods like another exotic one-of-a-kind sports car or a Gulf Stream G700 or a mega yacht unless those things could yield more power. He knew of dozens of actors who, like rising sports stars, frittered away their wealth on toys that did them no good—and those were the ones that avoided the even more bone-headed play of getting married. The only reason to get a sports car was to let someone else drive it and wreck it and then be beholden to you. The only reason to own a Gulf Stream was to take people to locations to gamble too much or drug too hard and then be beholden to you. The only reason to have a 600 foot yacht was to wire and video what went on not only in the public areas but in the supposedly “private” cabins and then to be smart enough using the compromising information that the compromised either did not know how that information was obtained or were so desperate that they would never reveal how Harlan got it.

“Hey Ari,” Harlan said to Mann as Mann entered the suite. “This is Stephen Ngyun,” he said, gesturing to a lean well dressed man seated to Harlan’s side in a Rose Tarlow Coventry Wingback chair.

“What the hell was the idea of sending that writer to my room?” Mann asked.

“What are you talking about?” Harlan asked.

“The writer in my room?” Mann repeated.

“Writer? You mean Ngyun here? I guess he’s sort of a writer. But he hasn’t been in your room.”

“Hello,” Ngyun said, somewhat formally.

“So Ari,” Harland said, “the reason I need to talk to you is that, sorry to say, we don’t have any interest in the screenplay your agent pitched. Sorry.”

“What?” Mann asked.

“But there’s bigger fish to fry here. The thing is, that contract you’ve been working under for our screening service that’s up in two months, we’re not going to renew that.”

“What?” Mann asked again.

“See, all that script doctoring you’ve been doing, Ngyun here—he’s one of Jax Calder’s boys—has figured out a way to do with AI.”

“What?” Mann asked for the third time.

“Super easy,” Ngyun said. “We simply generalized the same process you have been using for the last two years. We had all the original scripts along with the rewrites, and we used that to train the AI.”

Mann had run out of words.

“So,” Harlan concluded, rising from his chair. “Just thought I’d bring you in to let you know. Figured I owed you that, but we’ll get you on a plane back to New York tomorrow morning. Good luck,” he concluded with a dismissive wave of his hand.

***

Mann staggered back to his room. What was happening to him?

Wait! If the man in his room was not a cowriter, who was he? He called his bodyguard.

“Doug! Who’s been in my room tonight?”

“In your room? No one, other than you, when you came back from the party.”

“That’s impossible,” Mann said. “When I was here earlier…” Mann was at the door of his cabin. Was he hallucinating? “Never mind,” he said to Baker. “I’m back here now.”

Bill was once more sitting at his desk, scribbling away with his stupid feathered pen.

“You!” Mann said. “What the hell!”

“Good, thou art returned,” Bill said. “Now we may speak of your trouble.”

“My trouble?”

“Thou canst not pen thine own life’s chronicle, for thou art not he whom thou deem’st thyself.”

“What are you talking about? Of course I am who I think I am.”

“Were it so, thou wouldst not labour thus in vain, wouldst thou?”

“Bullshit. I just have to get an angle in on my character. Maybe a different perspective.”

Bill looked thoughtful. “Ay, perchance another vantage were meet. Thou know’st these modern toys of thine do render an easy keeping of ‘a servant fee’d.’ Come, let us peruse captured sights, taken aboard this wonderful ship, the Shazzam.”

“You mean security footage? There’s security footage?”

“Why would thou think otherwise?” Bill asked. “The whole drift of inviting thee and the rest aboard is but to watch close and thereby seize matter that may undo thee.”

“That’s illegal!”

“Harlan doth in effect command the courts of that realm whose flag the Shazzam flies.”

“So he has us here to blackmail us?”

“Ay, but not for base coin. The prize is power and sway o’er men. Yet in this instance, these captured visions may serve to teach thee of thine own nature.”

“I don’t believe it. Doug would know about this and tell me.”

“Nay, Doug is privy to the truth, yet he holds his peace and tells thee nothing.”

“Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“Let him speak for himself, good sir. Be seated, I pray thee.”

As Mann seated himself, Bill turned a monitor on the desk to where Mann could see it. “Marry, here it is—behold!,” Bill said, picking an item from a list on the monitor.

The monitor played video footage of a lounge where Doug Baker and the other bodyguards sat around a table playing poker and smoking cigars. Baker’s phone rang and he answered it. He raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes at the other bodyguards in annoyance at the interruption of their game as he listened to the phone. Mann could hear himself ask:

“Doug! Who’s been in my room tonight?”

“In your room? No one, other than you, when you came back from the party.”

“That’s impossible,” Mann said. “When I was here earlier … Never mind.”

“What the hell was that about?” one of the other bodyguards asked.

Baker shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?” he said.

“Why do you even work for that prick, anyway?”

“Why do any of us work for any of these pricks?” Baker asked. “Money, travel, great food. But I made a promise to his mother that I’d always take care of him, no matter what. God, I loved that woman.”

“Lara Soliel? Easy to see why!” The bodyguard held his chest with both hands. “What a rack!”

The video stopped.

“What the fuck!” Mann said. He shook his head in disbelief. “But if Harlan’s got footage of the bodyguards’ lounge, what doesn’t he have footage of?”

“Not much, good sir,” Bill said. “Behold this,” WS said, choosing another entry from the list.

The monitor showed a scene from the kitchen with the woman that had served Calder and Mann at dinner in the kitchen with chef Camille Laurent.

The server looked at the chef and said: “Mr. Mann doesn’t seem to want anything I bring him!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Laurent said.

“Aren’t you insulted?”

“Nah,” the chef replied. “Happens all the time with these Hollywood types.”

“But all the wonderful food, and he’s eating a few leaves of lettuce with some vinegar and a piece of salmon with no sauce.”

“Happens all the time with these Hollywood types,” the chef said. “Usually one of three things. Another weird fad diet. Or they’re on the big O.”

“Ozempic?”

“Right.”

“What else? You said three things?”

The chef shrugged. “With some of them, they just get old and their taste buds and stomach are shot. They just can’t take it anymore. Pity that they can’t enjoy a fine meal, but there you go.”

The video stopped.

Bill said “In like manner, there is this encounter in due season.”

The monitor showed the server Mann had sent for a club soda and the bartender.

“Another club soda,” the server told the bartender. “Jesus, the number of people in rehab at these things is astounding! It must be horrible not the be able to enjoy so much as an occasional beer.”

“Don’t worry,” the bartender winked. “They all fall off the wagon in a month or two.”

The video stopped again.

“Well, so what?” Mann asked. “If these idiots don’t know what to make of my Stoicism, what difference does that make?”

“In reply thereto, belike we ought to look upon some captured sights of last night.”

The screen showed Mann rummaging through his suitcase for a Snickers.

“Well,” Mann said, “there’s no harm in having a candy bar once in a while… ”

“And thee a self proclaimed Stoic?” Bill asked. “And how now, this vision?”

The screen showed Mann reaching for a box of Kleenex and undoing his belt buckle while reaching for the keyboard.

“Hey! No need to show that!”

“Marry, I am of thy mind entire—most nauseous and base!” Bill said, stopping the video. “Prithee, hadst thou access to these particular moving shadows, thou wouldst have known the storm ere it broke.”

The monitor showed Mike Flynn and Victor Harlan at the after dinner party.

“There’s your old friend Ari Mann,” Victor Harlan said.”

“‘Old friend’?” Flynn asked. “He said he was working on a script for you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Really?” Flynn raised his eyebrows.

“He’s lost his edge,” Harlan grunted.

“He was great in his day. Imagine, three Oscars by age thirty-five.”

“Maybe he had some talent back once. Although, when it comes to winning Oscars, it doesn’t hurt when your parents and step-fathers are related to half the Academy.”

“He’s got a lot of connections,” Flynn said. “Or at least had a lot of connections. If you’re not going to pick up his script, what’s he doing here?”

“It’s a ‘good news for us, bad news for him’ situation.”

“I’d feel a little worse if he wasn’t such an arrogant prick.”

The screen went blank again.

“And to conclude, —behold, the two wenches of the boards thou knew’st carnally years past.”

The screen showed the two actresses waving toward someone. Him?

Everly Quinn looked at Nora Reyes and said “Isn’t that Ari Mann?” jesturing toward the far side of the room.

“The script writer?” Reyes looked. “So it is! Looks scrawny and worn out,” she continued. “You know, I scored him on the way up … must have been twenty years ago.”

“You too?” Quinn asked. “God, I think we all did. Although as I recall… ” she held up a hand with fingers clenched except for her dainty pinky which was delicately curved. They both laughed.

Mann sat silent.

“Others hold thee not the man thou think’st thyself. Dost thou know’st thine own nature?”

Mann stared at the screen. “Are you telling me that they are the ones who know who I am?”

“Hardly so! Each hath his own partialities, humours, and defects of sight,” Bill said.

“So I suppose then that you can tell me who I am?”

“Not in the least. That would add but one more flawed beholder to the throng.”

“What does that mean? Are your going to tell me how to find myself and my voice so that I can write my screenplay, or not?”

“Let us turn to Macbeth. Dost thou remember his last soliloquy, that begins ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow’?”

“Sure!” Mann said. He was proud of his memory. He recited:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

“Excellent good!” Bill said. “How came Macbeth to this pass, longing for death by his own hand or by another’s in battle’s rage?”

“His ambition led him to make himself king,” Mann said.

“Many a man is ambitious. Such is not the true cause. The true cause is who he hearkened to.”

“You mean the witches with their prophesies,” Mann said.

“Aye, the weird sisters,” Bill continued, “Who else did Macbeth heed?”

“His wife. She was one psychotic bitch, all right.”

“And he hearkens to her counsel not once but oft. And most important, when he speaks his last soliloquy?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me.”

“Seyton.”

“Satan? The devil?” Mann asked.

“So it sounds but ‘tis spelled S-E-Y-T-O-N. Now that we have settled who he hearkened to, who, then, did he fail to heed?”

“His fellow captain, Banquo.”

“Aye, again excellent good! He does fail to heed the faithful Banquo many times. And he also fails once more.”

“Who?” Mann asked.

“After he hath slain the king’s grooms, he says that ‘Amen’ sticks in his throat. And therein lies the mischief.”

“So you are telling me that Macbeth’s downfall is not because of his ambition, but because he listened to the witches, his wife, and, well, Seyton which sounds like Satan, and he didn’t listen to Banquo and because he can’t say ‘Amen’?”

“Just so! We have Macbeth’s fault identified. And who is Macbeth’s foil?”

“That would be Malcolm, the King’s son and rightful heir to the throne.”

“Wrong. ‘Tis Macduff.”

“Macduff! Why would anyone think it was Macduff?”

“The names are near as kin.

“‘Both be thanes of high degree.

“Their ladies first appear’d: one waits her lord’s return; the other learns her husband fled the realm. Both ladies do tax their lords with want of manliness.

“Macbeth with Banquo hails the witches, hell’s own messengers to earth. Macduff with Lennox knocks, and the Porter, comic fiend, plays hell-gate’s keeper.

“Finally, note well: Macbeth last saw Duncan living and Macduff first saw him slain.”

“Hold on,” Mann said. “I just don’t see where you are going with this. Even if I accept that Macduff is Macbeth’s ‘foil’ as you say, and that Macbeth heeds bad advice, what has that got to do with me and why I can’t seem to find my own character when writing an autobiographical screenplay? This seems to be going nowhere!”

“Hark ye! What ear tongue doth Macduff obey?” Bill asked.

“This seems like a really, really obscure point and I’ll have to admit you are losing me here. What are  you telling me? Why don’t you just come out and say it?”

“I am a genius and not an apostle,” Bill said. He took a deep breath, looked Mann in the eyes, and spoke slowly and carefully: “In Act the Fourth, Macduff was lied to twice, by Malcolm’s test, and by Ross’s slow reveal. And at the end of the Act… ” Bill suddenly stopped, rolled back in his chair, and raised a finger. “Nay, soft! Nature will not be denied. I must pause for this most human call.”

Bill left the chair by Mann’s desk and went to the en suite. Mann could hear his stream through the open door. Mann took the chair where Bill had just been seated and noticed that there was a window on the screen open to a listing of various security feeds, including a live one of his room. He clicked on it and it showed him sitting at his desk. He watched the screen as Bill finished his business and walked toward him. From the camera angle, Mann should have seen Bill’s back, but there was nothing where Bill was. Mann looked at Bill, who, Mann noted, looked at the screen.

“Oh,” Bill said. He looked at Mann and put his palms together with the fingers pointed upward. “Who does Macduff heed in Act 4?” he asked. “And remember, ‘Things won are done. Joy’s soul lies in the doing.’”

Mann looked back at the screen. It still showed only himself. He looked back to where Bill had been, but there was no one there.

“Very well then,” Mann said to himself. “Act 4, scene 3 it is.”

Epilogue

When reading the following excerpt from Macbeth 4:3:221-241, keep in mind that the “Act to Restrain Abuses of Players” in 1606 (the year Macbeth was first performed on stage), made explicit reference to God illegal and that playwrights generally used the word “heaven” as a substitute for “God.”

I cannot but remember such things [his slaughtered wife and children] were
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now.
Oh, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission. Front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland [Macbeth] and myself.
Within my sword’s length set him; if he ‘scape,
Heaven forgive him too.

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