Terry Pratchett’s
WYRD SISTERS
The Play
adapted for the stage by Stephen Briggs
Terry Pratchett takes Shakespeare’s Macbeth and then turns it up ’till the knob comes off. It’s all there – a wicked duke and duchess, the ghost of the murdered king, dim soldiers, strolling players, a land in peril. And who stands between the Kingdom and destruction? Three witches. Granny Weatherwax (intolerant, self-opinionated, powerful), Nanny Ogg (down-to-earth, vulgar) and Magrat Garlick (naïve, fond of occult jewellry and bunnies).
Stephen Briggs has been involved in amateur dramatics for over 25 years and he assures us that the play can be staged without needing the budget of Industrial Light and Magic. Not only that but the cast should still be able to be in the pub by 10 o’clock!
Oh, and a word of advice omitted from the play text:
Learn The Words
Havelock, Lord Vetinari
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Introduction
Cast of Characters
Performance Rights
Scene 1 – The Blasted Heath
Scene 2 – Lancre Castle
Scene 3 – The Theatre
Scene 4 – The Castle
Scene 5 – Witch’s Cottage
Scene 6 – The Castle
Scene 7 – Witch’s House
Scene 8 – The Castle Dungeon
Scene 9 – Castle Gatehouse
Scene 10 – Outside the Dungeon
Scene 11 – The Castle Dungeon
Scene 12 – The Castle
Scene 13 – The Blasted Heath
Scene 14 – The Wood
Scene 15 – A Street in Ankh-Morpork
Scene 16 – The Theatre
Scene 17 – The Theatre
Scene 18 – Witch’s House
Scene 19 – On the Road
Scene 20 – The Woods
Scene 21 – The Main Hall of the – Castle
Scene 22 – On Stage
Scene 23 – The Blasted Heath Again
About the Authors
Introducing Discworld
Also by Terry Pratchett
Copyright
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
A Random House Group Company
www.transworldbooks.co.uk
WYRD SISTERS – THE PLAY
A CORGI BOOK : 9780552144308
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446497869
First publication in Great Britain
PRINTING HISTORY
Corgi edition published 1996
5 7 9 10 8 6
Wyrd Sisters originally published in Great Briitain by
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Copyright © Terry and Lyn Pratchett 1988
Stage adaption copyright © by
Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs 1996
Discworld ® is a registered trademark
The right of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at:
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The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009
Terry Pratchett is the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. In all, he is the author of fifty bestselling books. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he is the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, as well as being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. Worldwide sales of his books now stand at 70 million, and they have been translated into thirty-seven languages.
Visit www.terrypratchett.co.uk.
Stephen Briggs was born in Oxford in 1951 and he still lives there, with his wife Ginny and their sons, Philip and Christopher. In what would generally pass for real life, he works for a small government department dealing with the food industry. However, as an escape to a greater reality, he has been involved for many years in the Machiavellian world of amateur dramatics, which is how he came to discover the Discworld. Stephen is, by nature, a Luddite, but the Discworld has drawn him into the world of PCs, wordprocessing and electronic mail; he has even been known to paddle on the Internet. His other interests include sketching, back-garden ornithology and Christmas. He has never read Lord of the Rings all the way through.
The Discworld series is a continuous history of a world not totally unlike our own, except that it is a flat disc carried on the backs of four elephants astride a giant turtle floating through space, and that it is peopled by, among others, wizards, dwarves, soldiers, thieves, beggars, vampires and witches. Within the history of Discworld there are many individual stories, which can be enjoyed in any order. But reading them in the sequence in which they were written can increase your enjoyment through the accumulation of all the fine detail that contributes to the teeming imaginative complexity of this brilliantly conceived world.
1. THE COLOUR OF MAGIC
2. THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
3. EQUAL RITES
4. MORT
5. SOURCERY
6. WYRD SISTERS
7. PYRAMIDS
8. GUARDS! GUARDS!
9. ERIC
(illustrated by Josh Kirby)
10. MOVING PICTURES
11. REAPER MAN
12. WITCHES ABROAD
13. SMALL GODS
14. LORDS AND LADIES
15. MEN AT ARMS
16. SOUL MUSIC
17. INTERESTING TIMES
18. MASKERADE
19. FEET OF CLAY
20. HOGFATHER
21. JINGO
22. THE LAST CONTINENT
23. CARPE JUGULUM
24. THE FIFTH ELEPHANT
25. THE TRUTH
26. THIEF OF TIME
27. THE LAST HERO
(illustrated by Paul Kidby)
28. THE AMAZING MAURICE &
HIS EDUCATED RODENTS
(for younger readers)
29. NIGHT WATCH
30. THE WEE FREE MEN
(for younger readers)
31. MONSTROUS REGIMENT
32. A HAT FULL OF SKY
(for younger readers)
33. GOING POSTAL
34. THUD!
35. WINTERSMITH
(for younger readers)
36. MAKING MONEY
37. UNSEEN ACADEMICALS
38. I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT (for younger readers)
39. SNUFF
Other books about Discworld
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD
(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II:THE GLOBE
(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD III:
DARWIN’S WATCH
(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)
THE NEW DISCWORLD COMPANION
(with Stephen Briggs)
NANNY OGG’S COOKBOOK
(with Stephen Briggs, Tina Hannan and Paul Kidby)
THE PRATCHETT PORTFOLIO
(with Paul Kidby)
THE DISCWORLD ALMANAK
(with Bernard Pearson)
THE UNSEEN UNIVERSITY CUT-OUT BOOK
(with Alan Batley and Bernard Pearson)
WHERE’S MY COW?
(illustrated by Melvyn Grant)
THE ART OF DISCWORLD
(with Paul Kidby)
THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DISCWORLD
(compiled by Stephen Briggs)
THE FOLKLORE OF DISCWORLD
(with Jacqueline Simpson)
Discworld maps
THE STREETS OF ANKH-MORPORK
(with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)
THE DISCWORLD MAPP
(with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)
A TOURIST GUIDE TO LANCRE – A DISCWORLD MAPP
(with Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby)
DEATH’S DOMAIN
(with Paul Kidby)
Non-Discworld books
THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN
STRATA
THE UNADULTERATED CAT (illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)
GOOD OMENS (with Neil Gaiman)
Non-Discworld novels for younger readers
THE CARPET PEOPLE
TRUCKERS
DIGGERS
WINGS
ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND*
(www.ifnotyouthenwho.com)
JOHNNY AND THE DEAD
JOHNNY AND THE BOMB
NATION
Plays based on the books of Terry Pratchett
adapted for the stage by Stephen Briggs
MORT
WYRD SISTERS
GUARDS! GUARDS!
MEN AT ARMS
MASKERADE
CARPE JUGULUM
INTERESTING TIMES
THE FIFTH ELEPHANT
THE TRUTH
JINGO
NIGHTWATCH
MOSTROUS REGIMENT
GOING POSTAL
JOHNNY AND THE DEAD
THE AMAZING MAURICE & HIS EDUCATED RODENTS
MAKING MONEY (in preparation)
adapted for the stage by Irana Brown
LORDS AND LADIES
adapted for the stage by Mark Ravenhill
NATION
A complete list of Terry Pratchett ebooks and audio books as well as other books based on the Discworld series – illustrated screenplays, graphic novels and comics – can be found on www.terrypratchett.co.uk
AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE
Since the publication of The Streets of Ankh-Morpork, I have been drawn ever further into the Discworld universe. As well as working with Terry on The Discworld Companion, I was suddenly in demand – well, OK, I was in demand when I was dressed as Death – to pose for publicity photos. The first session was for a Discworld computer game; then Death was again summoned to be photographed with Dave Greenslade and Terry for his CD From the Discworld. I was delighted to find myself invited to ‘play’ Didactylos in the Small Gods track; yes, that was me – ‘Nevertheless, the Turtle does move’. Er … not my real voice, of course.
Death even got an invitation to London’s flashiest Indian restaurant to have a curry with a group of journalists as part of the publicity for a Discworld computer game. A whole room full of journalists but, unfortunately for Death, no take-away.
My drama club has now staged Wyrd Sisters, Mort, Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms and Maskerade. We were even invited to act out a tiny extract from ‘our’ Guards! Guards! for Sky TV’s Book Programme.
In fact, Oxford’s Studio Theatre Club were the first people ever to dramatise the Disc world.
We had a theatre that seats ninety people. We had a stage that was about the size of a pocket handkerchief with the wings of Tinkerbell. Put on a Discworld play? Simple …
A flat, circular world borne through space on the backs of four enormous elephants who themselves stand on the carapace of a cosmically large turtle? Nothing to it. A seven-foot skeleton with glowing blue eyes? No problem. A sixty-foot fire-breathing dragon? A cinch.
My drama club had already staged its own adaptations of other works: Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Holy Grail – and Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse Blue and Blott on the Landscape. We were looking for something new when someone said, ‘Try Terry Pratchett – you’ll like him.’
So I ventured into the previously uncharted territory of the ‘Fantasy’ section of the local bookstore. I read a Terry Pratchett book; I liked it. I read all of them. I wrote to Terry and asked if we could stage Wyrd Sisters. He said yes.
Wyrd Sisters sold out.
So did Mort the year after.
So did Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms and Maskerade in the three years after that. In fact, ‘sold out’ is too modest a word. ‘Oversold very quickly so that by the time the local newspaper mentioned it was on we’d had to close the booking office’ is nearer the mark.
My casts were all happy enough to read whichever book we were staging, and to read others in the canon too. The books stand on their own, but some knowledge of the wider Discworld ethos helps when adapting the stories, and can help the actors with their characterisations.
The Discworld stories are remarkably flexible in their character requirements. Mort has been performed successfully with a cast of three (adding in an extra thrill for the audience, who knew that sooner or later a character would have to have a dialogue with themselves. But it turned out very well). On the other hand, there is plenty of scope for peasants, wizards, beggars, thieves and general rhubarb merchants if the director is lucky enough to have actors available.
I’d better add a note of caution here. There are a lot of small parts in the plays which nevertheless require good acting ability (as we say in the Studio Theatre Club: ‘There are no small parts, only small actors’). The character may have only four lines to say but one of them might well be the (potentially) funniest line in the play. Terry Pratchett is remarkably democratic in this respect. Spear-carriers, demons and even a humble doorknocker all get their moment of glory. Don’t let them throw it away!
Terry writes very good dialogue. Not all authors do. But Terry, like Dickens, writes stuff which you can lift straight into your play. Although it was often necessary to combine several scenes from the book into one scene in the play, I tried to avoid changing the original Pratchett dialogue. After all, you perform an author’s work because you like their style; as much of that style as possible should be evident in the play.
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