MAC, tired and hungover, enters The Bar to find it filled with strange old men in matching leather jackets. 

MAC: Hey, Dennis, who the **** are these people?

He turns to the bar and finds, instead of Dennis, a STRANGE OLD MAN he’s never seen before wiping it down with a rag. 

MAC: Whoa, shit! Who the **** are you?

STRANGE OLD MAN: One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

MAC: What?

INTERTITLE: THE GANG PERFORMS LEAR

STRANGE OLD MAN: Your friends are out back, contending with the fretful element.

As if in a dream, Mac walks out to the alley behind the bar, where he finds Frank and Charlie. Although we saw sunshine through the door when he walked in, it is now the middle of the night and pouring rain. 

FRANK: (howling at the sky:)  Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

CHARLIE: O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy childrens’ blessing: here’s a night pities neither wise man nor fool.

FRANK: Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children,
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join’d
Your high engender’d battles ‘gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! ’tis foul!

CHARLIE: He that has a house to put’s head in has a good head-piece.

MAC: Charlie! What are you guys doing?

CHARLIE: Marry, here’s grace and a cod-piece; that’s a wise man and a fool.

MAC: Guys, this isn’t funny, come inside.

FRANK: Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pother o’er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp’d of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjured;
Close pent-up guilts, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn’d against than sinning.

MAC: Come on, guys, come inside, it’s raining like crazy out here.

FRANK: My wits begin to turn.
(to CHARLIE:)
Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? art cold?
I am cold myself. (to MAC:) Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That’s sorry yet for thee.

CHARLIE: (singing:)
He that has and a little tiny wit–
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,–
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day.

The camera follows Charlie as the three re-enter the bar. The mysterious man has vanished. Dennis and Dee are inside.

DEE::
(gesturing to CHARLIE)
Not only, sir, this your all-licensed fool,
But other of your insolent retinue
Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth
In rank and not-to-be endured riots.

MAC: Oh, not you guys, too.

CHARLIE: For, you trow, nuncle,
The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
That it’s had it head bit off by it young.
So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling.

FRANK: Are you our daughter?

DEE: Come, sir,
I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away
These dispositions, that of late transform you
From what you rightly are.

CHARLIE: May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse? Whoop, Jug! I love thee.

MAC: Charlie, what the fuck are you talking about?

FRANK: Doth any here know me? This is not Frank: Doth Frank walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his discernings Are lethargied–Ha! waking? ’tis not so. Who is it that can tell me who I am?

CHARLIE: Frank’s shadow.

FRANK: I should be false persuaded I had children.
(to DEE:) Your name, fair gentlewoman?

DENNIS:
This admiration, sir, is much o’ the savour
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright:
As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men so disorder’d, so debosh’d and bold,
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust
Make it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a graced palace. The shame itself doth speak
For instant remedy: be then desired
By her, that else will take the thing she begs,
A little to disquantity your train;
And the remainder, that shall still depend,
To be such men as may besort your age,
And know themselves and you.

FRANK:
Darkness and devils!
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
Degenerate bastard! I’ll not trouble thee.
Yet have I left a daughter.
I can be patient; I can stay with Deandra,
I and my hundred knights.

The gang of old men in leather jackets cheer.

DEE:
Not altogether so:
I look’d not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my brother;
For those that mingle reason with your passion
Must be content to think you old, and so–
But he knows what he does.

FRANK:
Is this well spoken?

DEE:
I dare avouch it, sir: what, fifty followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?

DENNIS:
Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance
From those that she calls servants or from mine?

DEE:
Why not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack you,
We could control them. I entreat you
To bring but five and twenty: to no more
Will I give place or notice.

FRANK:
I gave you all–

DEE:
And in good time you gave it.

FRANK:
Made you my guardians, my depositaries;
But kept a reservation to be follow’d
With such a number. What, must I come to you
With five and twenty, Dee? do you say so?

DEE:
And speak’t again, my lord; no more with me.

FRANK:
Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour’d,
When others are more wicked: not being the worst
Stands in some rank of praise.
(To DEE:) I’ll go with thee:
Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty,
And thou art twice his love.

DEE:
Hear me, my lord;
What need you five and twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?

DENNIS:
What need one?

FRANK:
O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,–
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that stir these daughters’ hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall–I will do such things,–
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep
No, I’ll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I’ll weep. O Charlie, I shall go mad!

End.