HEADSMAN. The Queen! The Queen! [At the fifth stroke the Headsman falls on his knees. The Queen becomes regal, her foot on his neck. The Boy kneels at her side. QUEEN. Base villain! According to the law I am saved! But you are doomed. As Winder of the King's four clocks the law commands that you be decapitated because the four clocks did not strike together. Do you know that law? HEADSMAN. Oh, Lady, I do, but I did but do my duty. I was sharpening my axe this morning and I couldn't wind the clocks. Intercede for me. QUEEN. It is useless. BOY. Is there any other headsman? QUEEN. The law says the Chief Headsman must behead the chief Winder of the King's four clocks. BOY. Can the Dreadful Headsman behead himself? QUEEN. Aye, there's the difficulty. HEADSMAN. Oh, your Majesty, pardon me! BOY. Yes, pardon him. QUEEN. On one condition: He is to give his axe to the museum and devote all his old age to the care of the King's four clocks. . . . For myself, I shall pass a law requiring the ladies of the Court to wear no jewels. So, if the King's aunt can wear no rings, she assuredly cannot have a ring-toe, and hereafter I may step where I please. . . . Sir Headsman, lead the way. And now, my little boy, to you I grant every Friday afternoon an hour's sport with the Mime, a spotted cow for the little Milkmaid, a cushion and a canopy at the palace gate for the Blindman, a vermillion cloak for the Ballad-Singer, a velvet gown, a silken kerchief and a cloth-ofgold bonnet for your mother, and for yourself a milk-white palfrey, two pails of gold, two finger rings, a castle and a sword. . . . Arise, Sir Little Boy. . . . Your arm. BOY. May I take my knife, your Majesty? QUEEN. That you may. (He gets the knife and returns to her. She lays her hand on his arm) Sir Headsman, announce our coming. HEADSMAN. Make way make way for her Majesty, the QUEEN (correcting). And Sir Little Boy. HEADSMAN. What's his other name, your Majesty? BOY (whispering with the wonder of it all). Davie. QUEEN (to the Headsman). Davie. HEADSMAN. Make way-make way for her Majesty, the Queen, and Sir Davie Little Boy.. [They go out. Immediately the Boy returns and gets the pot of lentils and runs after the Queen as the Curtains close. ABOUT MASTER SKYLARK Group dramatization has become quite a sport these days; it is as exciting as any other game one might play. For you build something at the same time that you learn something; you are somebody at the same time that you get to know a great deal about that person. Everyone of us has read a book and wished himself the hero, or herself the heroine. Well, why not be if the story is worth while acting, and the character worth while being? It has been wisely suggested by a teacher that all the spirit of history is dried up in the irksome task of remembering dates. What is the meaning of 1492 unless you can experience some of the feeling which came over Columbus when he put forth on a trackless sea? So this teacher, Miss Knox, with her associate, Miss Lütkenhaus, through practice, have been convinced that if children go to the Museum of Art and see the picture of Columbus before Ferdinand and Isabella, if they dramatize the scene, and study how to dress the parts and write out for themselves the dialogue suitable for Monarch and suppliant, these children will learn more about Columbus than the history books aim to teach in the early grades; and incidentally they will learn to write good English, which they will speak intelligently and distinctly. Thus, when a class in school is to dramatize a story, such class is divided into working groups, each one of which is responsible for some feature of the production as a whole. The trades-guilds, in medieval times, gave miracle plays in this way, as far as presentation is concerned. When, finally, the play is done, everyone has had a hand in its creation. I have always believed, following the history of the Yale Dramatic Association, of Yale University, that the boys who produced a Shakespeare or a Sheridan or an Ibsen play - being responsible for its every detail, as well as for the arrangement of the "book of the play" — knew more about it in the end because of their active work in producing it than the boys who spent days in a minute study of every word of the text. So it is, even in the early years, when dramatization is a game, when this child is Queen Bess, when the other is Sir Walter Raleigh, and they visualize and vitalize the fictitious incident of the cloak and puddle of water. - All schools and colleges are playing this game seriously. At the University of North Dakota and at the University of North Carolina — both under the inspiration of Dr. Frederick Koch; at the Francis W. Parker School, in Chicago; and at Public School No. 15, Borough of Manhattan, New York, this cooperative method of playwriting and producing has been used with great success. Miss Knox and Miss Lütkenhaus dedicate their volume of "Plays for School Children" (Century) in the following manner: "We dedicate this book to all children who love a good story, with this message: If you would become better and better acquainted with your favourite heroes and heroines in fiction and history, be the hero-act your part and act it well, and by-and-by you will find yourself growing into the fine qualities of the character you love and growing out of the uglinesses of that you despise." In other words, you can dramatize Mother Goose, or you can be Rosalind, in "As You Like It", or you can learn a lot about the Elizabethan Age by being Master Skylark to the full bent of your power, and the full opportunity of the part. Read John Bennett's story, "Master Skylark", and see whether the play here made from it is as interesting; compare this version with Edgar White Berrill's longer dramatization of the same, and determine whether it would be easier for you to do the longer or the shorter play whether the latter is not more practicable for your purpose. And, in the preparations for your presentation of "Master Skylark" — should you care to give it turn to the story, |