Thalia Follies sketch: The Tragedie of Spitzer

One of three sketches Gregory wrote for the May 2010 season of the Thalia Follies at Symphony Space, this Hamlet sendup stars former governor Mario Cuomo as the loquacious Polonius advising his son Andrew/Laertes about the perils of running for office.  Suddenly, the disgraced politician Eliot Spitzer/Hamlet wanders by wondering about whether to be or . . .

photo by Regina Larkin 


MARIO

Son, as you launch your way to Albany

Mark these few precepts in thy memory:

Take Fox News’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

And do not grease thy palm with bribes and kickbacks,

Though Shelly Silver’s gifts may shine like gold.

Neither a prostitute nor client be.

For lust in kings comes at a cost of crown,

And horndogging dulls the edge of husbandry.

Hotheaded Andrew, please remember this

Above all else: to thine own polls be true.

 

ANDREW

Most humbly do I thank you, blessed father,

And further will I venture not to step

Into the pitfalls of my pouty youth.

Great Gov’nor, think you that I have the guts?

Have I the light within to be the Sun?

Or will, like Phaeton’s fateful ride, my term

As Gov go down in flames, a grim finale

To both the last two Democrats who flopped,

The sightless Paterson and pantsless Spitzer?

But soft, the wand’ring Eliot, he comes,

Brooding, still soliloquizing on

His lot in life since stepping on his putz.

Let us take heed behind this Yamaha.

 

Mario and Andrew hide behind a piano as Eliot Spitzer enters carrying a dagger.

 

SPITZER

Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I.

That it should come to this – two years ago,

Nay not so much, not two, that I was Gov,

The glass of fashion and rose of our fair state,

And now my funeral’s baked meats and fruits

Will coldly furnish Andrew’s inaugural.

He Hyperion, myself the satyr,

His name now Hercules, mine Client Nine.

O! I did prize o’er much that whore’s bare bodkin.

Get me to a nunnery, and quickly!

Loins are unweeded gardens grown to seed.

Things rank and gross in nature possess me merely.

In that nympho’s book be all my sins remembered.

Fie on it, ah, fie!  Who needs all the grief?

The Assembly’s crap, Joe Bruno’s proud contumely,

The pangs of disprized legislation,

The insolence of blogs, and the spurns

That patient merit of unworthy voters takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare-bones job at City College?

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

And always bear the whips and scorns of The New York Times. 

 

He stabs himself and dies. 

ANDREW

O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.

 

MARIO

Someone should call the blind guy; he should know.

 

ANDREW

(to the audience) 

You that look pale and tremble at this chance,

That are but mutes or audience to this act.

Something’s rotten in the state of New York:

The budget quite o’ergrown, more taxes loom,

Corruption burns wild fire through Albany.

Who will take o’er his weekly column for Slate?

Who will resist temptation and cruel fate?

 

MARIO

(pounding his round belly)

O that this too too solid flesh should melt.

 

Laertes looks puzzled.  Lights out.

 

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