The Libertine Book

This play, set during the reign of Charles II about John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, has my favorite prologue ever.

Before sharing the prologue, allow me to influence whose voice you hear in your head while reading it. On stage, Rochester was initially played by John Malkovich, and I wish I had seen his performance. I can hear him in my mind delivering these lines. The film adaptation starred Johnny Depp as Rochester, with a slightly, but not overly so, abbreviated version of this prologue. Excellent! (John Malkovich played Charles II in the movie version.) Choose your actor...

"Allow me to be frank at the commencement: you will not like me. No, I say you will not. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on. Oh yes, I shall do things you will like. You will say "That was a noble impulse in him" or "He played a brave part there," but DO NOT WARM TO ME, it will not serve. When I become a BIT OF A CHARMER that is your danger sign for it prefaces the change into THE FULL REPTILE a few seconds later. What I require is not your affection but your attention. I must not be ignored or you will find me as troublesome a package of humanity as ever pissed into the Thames. Now. Ladies. An announcement. (He looks around.) I am up for it. All the time. That's not a boast. Or an opinion. It is bone hard medical fact. I put it around, d'you know? And you will watch me putting it around and sigh for it. Don't. It is a deal of trouble for you and you are better off watching and drawing your conclusions from a distance than you would be if I got my tarse pointing up your petticoats. Gentlemen. (He looks around.) Do not despair, I am up for that as well. When the mood is on me. And the same warning applies. Now, gents: if there be vizards in the house, jades, harlots (as how could there not be), leave them be for the moment. Still your cheesy erections till I have had my say. But later when you shag -- and later you will shag, I shall expect it of you and I will know if you have let me down -- I wish you to shag with my homuncular image rattling in your gonads. Feel how it was for me, how it is for me and ponder. "Was that shudder the same shudder he sensed? Did he know something more profound? Or is there some wall of wretchedness that we all batter with our heads at that shining, livelong moment?" That is it. That is my prologue, nothing in rhyme, certainly no protestations of modesty, you were not expecting that, I trust. I reiterate only for those who have arrived late or were buying oranges or were simply not listening: I am John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester and I do not want you to like me."

If that prologue grabs you the way it grabbed me, you may like the play (or movie). But the prologue gives fair warning and so does history. Debauchery has consequences, and not pretty ones. This play does not want you to like it.