Hag-Seed: the Tempest Retold - Softcover

Atwood Margaret

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099594021 ISBN 13: 9780099594024

Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE UK, 2017

Synopsis

BRAND NEW, Exactly same ISBN as listed, Please double check ISBN carefully before ordering.

About this title

About the Author:

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays including The Handmaid's Tale, the Booker-winning The Blind Assassin, the MaddAddam trilogy and her latest novel, The Heart Goes Last. Her work has received many awards around the world. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. Her first encounters with Shakespeare took place in the 1950s at her Toronto high school, and she has consistently named him as one of the most important influences on her own work. 'The Tempest is, in some ways, an early multi-media musical. If Shakespeare were working today he'd be using every special effect technology now makes available. But The Tempest is especially intriguing because of the many questions it leaves unanswered. What a strenuous pleasure it has been to wrestle with it!'

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

PROLOGUE:
Screening

Wednesday, March 13, 2013.

The house lights dim. The audience quiets.

ON THE BIG FLATSCREEN: Jagged yellow lettering on black:

THE TEMPEST
By William Shakespeare
with
The Fletcher Correctional Players

Onscreen: A hand-printed sign, held up to the camera byAnnouncer,wearing a short purple velvet cloak. In his otherhand, a quill.

Sign: A SUDDEN TEMPEST

Announcer: What you’re gonna see, is a storm at sea:Winds are howlin’, sailors yowlin’,Passengers cursin’ ’em, ’cause it gettin’ worse:Gonna hear screams, just like a ba-a-d dream,But not all here is what it seem,Just sayin’.

Grins.

Now we gonna start the playin’.

He gestures with the quill. Cut to: Thunder and lightning, in funnel cloud, screengrab from the Tornado Channel. Stock shot of ocean waves. Stock shot of rain. Sound of howling wind.Camera zooms in on a bathtub-toy sailboat tossing up and down on a blue plastic shower curtain with fish on it, the waves made by hands underneath.Closeup of Boatswain in a black knitted tuque. Water is thrown on him from offscreen. He is drenched.

BOATSWAIN: Fall to’t yarely, or we run ourselves aground!
Bestir, bestir!
Yare! Yare! Beware! Beware!
Let’s just do it,
Better get to it,
Trim the sails,
Fight the gales,
Unless you wantin’ to swim with the whales!
VOICES OFF: We’re all gonna drown!
BOATSWAIN:  Get outta tha’ way! No time for play!
A bucketful of water hits him in the face.
VOICES OFF: Listen to me! Listen to me!
Don’t you know we’re royalty?
BOATSWAIN:  Yare! Yare! The waves don’t care!
The wind is roarin’, the rain is pourin’,
All you do is stand and stare!
VOICES OFF:  You’re drunk!
BOATSWAIN:  You’re a idiot!
VOICES OFF:  We’re doomed!
VOICES OFF:  We’re sunk!

Closeup of Ariel in a blue bathing cap and iridescent ski goggles, blue makeup on the lower half of his face. He’s wearing a translucent plastic raincoat with ladybugs, bees, and butterflies on it. Behind his left shoulder there’s an odd shadow. He laughs soundlessly, points upward with his right hand, which is encased in a blue rubber glove. Lightning flash, thunderclap.

VOICES OFF:  Let’s pray!
BOATSWAIN:  What’s that you say?
VOICES OFF:  We’re goin’ down! We’re gonna drown!
Ain’t gonna see the King no more!
Jump offa the ship, swim for the shore!

Ariel throws his head back and laughs with delight. In each of his blue rubber hands he’s holding a high-powered flashlight, in flicker mode.
The screen goes black.

A VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE:  What?
ANOTHER VOICE: Power’s off.
ANOTHER VOICE: Must be the blizzard. A line down somewhere.

Total darkness. Confused noise from outside the room. Yelling.
Shots are fired.

A VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE: What’s going on?
VOICES, FROM OUTSIDE THE ROOM:  Lockdown! Lockdown!
A VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE: Who’s in charge here?

Three more shots.

A VOICE, FROM INSIDE THE ROOM:  Don’t move! Quiet!
Keep your heads down! Stay right where you are.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE UK
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0099594021
• ISBN 13: 9780099594024
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 289