Shakespeare's Players — Day 25
Genre: Fantasy / Adventure
Back story: For 400+ years a group of English actors have roamed the earth as immortals. Their immortality was not their choice—it was bequeathed to them, without their knowledge. But they have all gained immortality the same way: each was the first actor to play a role in one of William Shakespeare's new plays. The first Hamlet. The first Othello. The first Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. If they starred in the first production of a Shakespeare play, they can not die.
For many of them, it took several decades to realize that they were in fact immortal. The first sign was a string of unbroken good luck among the players. Many miraculous escapes occurred from accidents that should have claimed their lives. Within a few years or so, the players noticed that they no longer seems to grow sick. While Shakespeare was alive they joked with their playwright about the good fortune and strong constitution of his players, and he would smile and nod. Eventually, as the years passed and their friends and family around them aged, it seemed that the actors did not. But by the time they realized just what they had become, Shakespeare had already died, and taken any hope of answers with him.
As each player realized their immortality, they began to seek each other out. Some embraced their transformation, but most found it a curse, watching their loved ones wither and die. They also could no longer procreate. Whoever had a child before opening night might have a bloodline full of descendants. Whoever had not procreated, never will. The act of becoming immortal upon Shakespeare's stage seemed to bring sterility.
One of the most bitter legacies for the players is that they are the ultimate boys club. No women played parts in Shakespeare's plays. Young boys or effeminate men played Desdemona, Juliet, Lady Macbeth. Of course, some of the players found love among each other. But to have traveled the centuries without any women their same age and experience was a soul crushing burden for all of them. And for most of them, they are eternal bachelors, destined to lose any love they find with mortal women.
The players have a theory among them: They believe that Shakespeare sold their souls in return for immortality for his work. 38 plays passed down through the ages, with the actors from each trapped, wandering the earth. Their cycles of closeness and emotional distance from each other have ebbed and flowed over the centuries. But they meet at least once a decade, in the shadow of the Globe Theater in London, to commemorate their curse and raise a glass in honor and anger at Shakespeare.
Theirs is a small, tightly-knit group, less than 200 men. Throughout all the years, every player has been accounted for and knows every other—except one. The actor who played the first Iago was lost to time. After the first run of the first Othello production, Iago disappeared, never to be seen again. Some of the players think he escaped the immortality curse, and died in their Elizabethan age. Others think he may have been shipwrecked, and lies trapped beneath a boulder on the bottom of the sea, wriggling to get free for all eternity. Each man's thoughts on Iago are like their thoughts on God or their predicament: most of all it reveals their own inner nature, and little of the actual world.
Inciting incident: The players have gathered for their once-a-decade dinner on the bank of the Thames. They share stories of their travels and lives around the world, and, as always, speculate about their place in it and when they might be released from their immortal coil. As they sit down to dine, a cloaked figure interrupts their meal. Slowly, several of the figures stand as they recognize the stranger. It is Iago. "Hello brothers," he begins "I apologize for my long and unkind absence. But I bring good tidings. Our Bard, William Shakespeare, is alive. He is my prisoner. And your long, fruitless walk upon this earth is over. I alone have the key to end your immortality, and I am here to share it with you."