Fast Fiction Challenge #100: Shakespeare On Summer's Morn

This is the 100^th fast fiction challenge I've answered.

One hundred. In one hundred days.

Yeah.

To mark the occasion, there had to be something a little special. Tony Lee challenged me to not only use the word "sonnet" in the fast fiction, but to write it in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet... which meant iambic pentameter.

Here it is.

Title: Shakespeare On Summer's Morn
Word: sonnet
Challenger: reverend2001
Length: 200 words exactly

They came to town that early August morn,
Ten strolling players come to ply their trade.
To Stratford Common, set up on the lawn,
But only once of course they'd all been paid.
So Master Oliphant, he thus arrived.
Pomposity itself, prepared to speak.
The critics hated him but he'd survived,
(He was perforce the local Shakespeare geek.)
The worst of actors any could recall,
He planned to show them all that very day
Bringing the Bard again to one and all
A playwright born so many years away.
And Oliphant took to the stage once more
As he declaimed "So shaken as we are..."

The opening to Henry Fourth Part One
Commencing with those very words that way.
Through his performance Oliphant did stun
Much nicer than the truth: he stank that day.
But nonetheless, there was no doubt at all
The audience, they left the Common fast.
Such an abysmal, laughable portray'l
Unanimous verdict: "Please be the last!"
So Oliphant slunk off to sulk alone
Performances of others carried on
Without poor Oliphant, they did atone
And slowly did the audience return.
Soon someone told Oli where he'd gone wrong:
"Stick to a bloody sonnet from now on!"

© Lee Barnett, 2005