Summary

Scene Five is titled “An Audition.” Clark interviews several convicts about their interest in the play he is going to direct. The first is Meg, described as “very old and very smelly” (17). They banter back and forth about the meaning of the word “play,” with Meg making Clark uncomfortable by putting a sexual meaning on the word and on everything he says. As he becomes more uncomfortable, Meg implies that he was “a madge cull … a fluter, a mollie … a prissy cove, a girl” (18), since he did not have sex with any women on the ship or in the colony. She tells him to call her whenever he is ready to have a woman, and then goes off.

The next convict is Sideway, who speaks at length, and in formal language, about his affection for theatre, his skills as a pickpocket...