MEMFLAK AND TROGLIUM IN THE JUNGLE
I believe it was Professor Zazzo Thim who first alerted me to a possible ‘bad quarto’ version of the Shakespeare play, ‘Memflak and Troglium’. It was a cold winter’s night and we had met late in the bar of a theatre where an amateur production of the said play had just come to an conclusion. Professor Thim was clearly the worse for drink, but he was insistent that a bad quarto existed, more insistent still that the production we had just been watching was based on a more sanitised version which came to prominence in the years following Shakespeare’s death, when certain religious leaders omitted various scenes involving a nun and a dolphin. To my surprise the Professor then slumped his head on his chest and began to snore rather loudly. We were asked to leave moments later.
The next morning I received a phone call from the professor. He denied all knowledge about his condition the night before, but was still enthusiastic about the ‘bad quarto’, and he told me that he would like to put on a production of this version, which, written by himself, might possibly speculate as to what the bad quarto might contain. In a rash moment of enthusiasm I agreed to help with this undertaking, although I have never had any training in the theatre, nor have I ever been the sort to embrace exuberance. We met later that afternoon back at the theatre, a gothic building at the top end of a square in the middle of the town, and he told me how much he was looking forward to the project.
“A play much forgotten now”, said he, “Particularly among scholars”.
“It is the subject matter”, I told him. “People don’t much care for the views Shakespeare was seen to be expressing in that work”.
“Ah, yes” , said the Professor, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets and looking up at the lighting. “It has always been one of the ‘problem’ plays, along with Taming of the Shrew and the Merchant of Venice. To say that Memflak and Troglium …”.
“Hush!”, I implored. “Do you not recall the tradition? When in a theatre it is always safer to refer to it as the ‘Latvian’ play”.
The Professor cleared his throat, as if he were unsure of such superstitions. “The ‘Latvian’ play”, , he said, “Has always touched a nerve. That a love between a man and an elephant should not be portrayed in these modern times is just preposterous”.
He then sat on the edge of the stage and gazed out across the auditorium. “Indeed”, he said, in a wistful voice, “Sometimes I think the play has been forgotten entirely”.
He patted the stage next to him and I sat down.
“I remember”, he said, “Years ago, decades ago… We were serving in India, at the end of the second world war. We were protecting the tea plantations… Churchill quite rightly deduced that a nation deprived of its cuppa would crumble all too willingly, so our stationing was of utmost importance… But we were young lads, and very bored. What else could we do? The Darjeeling region saw hardly any fighting at all the time I was there, and we would wake each morning just to look out across the plantations, the heat rising on an airborne humidity which seemed to seep the sweat right out of us … How bored we all got, how unutterably bored.
“What luck that one of my closest companions was Sergeant Oliver Wahay. A temperamental Welshman, he had a love of Shakespeare and was said to be a scholar of his earlier plays. He suggested we put on a production of Mem. of the Latvian’ play to pass the time, and we would even create some goodwill among the local population by inviting our hosts. Poor old Oliver! Ever excited, he suggested we perform the so-called ‘bad quarto’, and then proceeded to pull out an exercise book filled with his very own version of it! We began rehearsals that very night.
“How enthusiastically we toiled, and contorted out tongues around those iambic pentameters. I played Chief Panda, of course, and it was my duty, in the third scene, to arrest Memflak after his first indiscretion with the elephant. When we could find no woman to play the part of Troglium, Oliver Wahay himself, reminding us that Shakespeare would always have used men dressed up as women, volunteered for the role. You see, Troglium is the most complex of Shakespeare’s female characters, for not only does she begin the play betrothed to a dolphin named Frederick, she then lures Memflak from his shenanigans with the elephant by using such powerful, colourful language, and rhetorical devices, that Memflak has no alternative but to fall under her spell. And the action, of course, finds its way her own bed where – and I am sure you are familiar with the play – they rest in each other’s arms in the moving final scene before being trampled to death by a herd of irate elephants. Such poetry, such masterful language, although. although I have never quite understood why Shakespeare should have populated Latvia with so many elephants.
“Nonetheless, the part of Memflak was played by a handsome young man called Shane, who had joined the army on leaving a well-known theatre company. How overjoyed he was at receiving the part of Memflak! How avidly he practised his soliloquy – ‘Oh that my heart shall race on a flash of grey crinkle-skin, those tusks which should bore me through a chest swell’d’ – while he stood in the tea plantations by the light of the moon… A shy lad, he fell into character by practising his Shakespearean dialect at all hours, which went down a hoot in the mess hall. ‘Thou hast the charms of a warthog’, he once told our commanding officer. We all fell about laughing. I think he got solitary confinement …
‘We practised our lines all summer. Even now, the mention of the words ‘Mem.: -! mean – ‘the Latvian play’, take me back. I hear the insects in the jungle, the foreign accents, the road of the mighty tiger, the fat rain drops falling on fleshy leaves.. Oliver and Shane would shoot their lines at each other while keeping watch: Though hast the manners of a pachyderm. Yet thy skin is soft like that of a dolphin.. Before long it became obvious that something more was passing between them than the usual ten syllables, and they began to be less and less obedient in the company, less vigilant in their duties.
“On the last day of our rehearsal I came down with Grey-Green fever and I was confined to my cabin for twenty-four hours. How sadly I sat next to the window, covered in a mosquito net, listening to the Shakespearean lines being let loose above the jungle. The fever subsided by early afternoon but I was still contagious, frantic with worry and frustrated at being kept inside. I decided to go for a walk in the jungle, where no-one might ever see me.
“I hadn’t gone far when I heard a noise. Through the trees I saw a figure, obviously unaware that I was there. He held a photograph in his hand, and he kept glancing on it admiringly, sighing deeply and running a hand over his eyes as if he could bare something no longer. I managed to get closer, close enough to see that the photograph was of Shane, his colleague, and obviously the object of his affections. At that moment I realised why the play had been chosen, and how much it meant for Oliver that everything went according to plan.
“That next day I was fully cured and we assembled in the middle of the town for the staging of our play. Shane and Oliver were resplendent in their costumes, and they made the villagers laugh and cry in equal measure. I delivered my lines with a workmanlike flair, and I heard a feint ripple of applause when I left the stage. At last we came to the moving final scene and, with the elephant on stand-by, Memflak and Troglium began their avid wooing, oblivious that these would be their last moments alive.
‘And then all hell broke loose… The elephant reared, knocked over the tent support, and set off on a rampage through the tea plantations. The villagers, fearing that their livelihoods would be ruined, set off after it with guns blazing, backed up by our army colleagues who, in any case, were bored of all this Shakespearean rubbish. And where did this leave Oliver and Shane? Suddenly superfluous, they clambered down from the stage, and Shane made his way back to the camp, whistling as if he had done his job well and no more was expected of him.
‘But Oliver was aghast, he beat the ground, swung light fittings around his head, and cried, shouted obscenities into the night.
“What more can I say? Oliver was never the same again. He wore a dolphin costume while guarding the tea plantations, and would spend nights sobbing in his tent, while Shane, eagerly transferred to the coffee groves of South America, was never seen again.
“So you see”, the Professor concluded, “Why this play has always meant so much to me. So many memories, so many deep, deep memories”.
That night I made a few telephone calls and arranged to meet Zazzo Thim at the theatre the next morning. He entered the auditorium, whistling, the jaunty scarf, as ever, wrapped around his neck. He handed me the latest version of the ‘bad quarto’ and I went through his revisions, and marvelled at the extra finesse he had added to the elephant trampling scene. “And now”, I added, “I have something for you”.
At that moment the door opened and two old men walked in, and, with the aid of sticks, proceeded to shuffle down the aisle towards the stage. Zazzo Thim could hardly believe his eyes. “Oliver!”, he said. “Shane! How the devil are you?” An emotional reunion followed, and they spent some minutes in getting to know each other again.
They had met a few times after the war, but had resumed relationships with other people.
Over the years they had kept in touch and had written plays, and sent each other suggestions for their respective acting careers, though this was the first time for over sixty years that they had met in person.
“We have come to tell you not to perform the Latvian play”, Oliver said, “Or at least, not the ‘bad quarto version”.
“I cannot agree”, Thim replied. “The modern generation needs to hear such words. Remember the fun we had in the jungle? Why not recreate that atmosphere here”.
“It should not be done”, Shane agreed.
“But the language! The storyline! The characterisations! This was a monumental work!” Thim said.
“There is no such play”, Oliver announced. Thiim stared at him for a few moments.
“I wrote it myself, or at least, the so-called ‘bad quarto’. And I only wrote it for the one reason”. At this, Oliver looked at Shane, who smiled back.
“Ah”, Thim whispered. “Young love ?”
“No!”, Oliver wailed. “I was a spy, working for the Japanese. At the moment the play was being held, an entire army was waiting to rip the fields of tea to shreds. It was to be one of the biggest operations of the entire war! And I was in the pay of the enemy! How avidly I wrote that accursed play, how diligently I learned the lines! “
“But I saw you, in the jungle”.
“Yes, and I saw you! I was passing secret messages to the enemy, yet the moment I heard you stumble through the undergrowth, no doubt insensitive of your clumsiness on account of your fever, I hastily took the photograph I had been showing them and …well, pretended that I was deeply in love with him”.
“And the raid on the tea plantation?”
“It never occurred. The rampaging elephant put paid to it. The whole evening was a complete fiasco!”
“But.. But…”, Thim stuttered. “The play … Memflak and Trog… The Latvian Play!”
“For goodness sake, man!”, Shane laughed, “She has rumpy-pumpy with a dolphin! Didn’t you think that was at least a bit…..odd?”
“I just thought it was Shakespeare”, Thim said, “Up to his usual tricks again”.
I left the three old men alone so that they could catch up on their lives. I left the theatre and walked out into the mid-morning sun. At that moment a large lorry pulled up from the zoo, its heavy load making the whole vehicle lean dangerously to one side.
“You won’t be needing that”, I told the driver, and I continued walking back to my lodgings.
Robert Garnham 