TRINCULO

A shipwrecked court jester, soaked and terrified, stumbles onto a strange fish-smelling creature on the beach and talks himself into hiding under it. Cowardice reasoned out to a ridiculous conclusion.

0:54Comic20s–30sBeginner

The speech90 words · 3 beats

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Off-book

What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell. A strange fish! A most strange thing! I' the wind, I' the wind! A strange fish!

Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.turn

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Speaking to: Himself, narrating his own bad options aloud.
What just happened: Wrecked ashore, alone, with a fresh storm rolling in and nowhere dry. Trinculo trips over Caliban, lying still under a cloak, and cannot tell if it is man, fish, or monster.
Objective: To find any shelter from the coming storm, however disgusting.
The turn: 'Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows' — revulsion loses to the weather and he crawls under the thing.
Watch out for: The trap is generic clowning. Trinculo's comedy is in real, specific disgust and real fear of the storm; the logic must be followed seriously. Let the smell genuinely appall him before need wins.

Full work: The Tempest New to the vocabulary? What’s a beat? →

More from The Tempest1

PROSPERO0:55A magician and former duke, near the end of his powers, watching a beautiful illusion he made vanish on cue.

TRINCULO

The Tempest · William Shakespeare · 0:54 · 90 words

Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i' the wind: yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell. A strange fish! A most strange thing! I' the wind, I' the wind! A strange fish! Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.

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