IMHULF: When I was younger I wondered how the world could be such a nasty place.
VERA: You don’t any more?
IMHULF: We get what we deserve.
VERA: Who are you talking to? Are you performing?
IMHULF: I’m always performing, that’s the way to live.

COBRIS: Yeah, I saw that, the one with the ring and the hat?
IMHULF: You did?
COBRIS: I did.
(pause)
IMHULF: So…
COBRIS: Now, hey, don’t put me on the spot. I mean, I really liked the plot.
IMHULF: The plot?
COBRIS: Yeah.
IMHULF: The plot was a folk story from Yadd Island.
COBRIS: It was?
IMHULF: Yeah. The words were new. So, what’d you think of the dialogue?
COBRIS: Uh-huh. Have you had the scrod here? It’s good.

VERA: He’s been getting worse.
COBRIS: What do you mean, getting worse?
VERA: Oh, Pelagis. You know. You were talking do him. Did he ask you what you thought about the new one?
COBRIS: …Yeah. I said it was good.
VERA: Good?
COBRIS: I don’t really know much about theater.
VERA: Well.
COBRIS: I didn’t mean…
VERA: Thanks a lot. I’m going to have to, I don’t know.
COBRIS: He’s so —
VERA: Give him a trophy or something. Maybe a baetyl.

IMHULF: I’m thinking of retiring.
JE-ATHAN: Maybe you should.
IMHULF: What? Why?
JE-ATHAN: I was just trying to be supportive.
IMHULF: I need support? What have you heard?
JE-ATHAN: Calm down, man, calm down!
IMHULF: I am calm.
JE-ATHAN: Then get excited, man, do something.

UR-MORAT: Tonight we honor a man whose command of language, whose love of words, has led to the creation of many of the finest texts of the dramatic canon. From his earliest, student pieces, “the Six-Fingered Hand,” “By the Numbers,” to his most recent triumph, “Wearing the Ring and the Hat,” Imhulf has continually refined not just his form, his vocabulary, but the vocabulary of the entire Mother Countries. A genius in his own lifetime, who must surely be already tiring of the accolades we’ve heaped upon him. Well, Imhulf, I’ll try to keep it brief.
(laughter)

IMHULF: I don’t think I write very good dialogue.
VERA: You’re being silly.
IMHULF: People say hey, good for you, you rewrote some faen bedtime story, dressed it up.
VERA: Don’t do this to me.
IMHULF: It’s all…
VERA: It’s all what? What is it all? What?

(Selected portions of dialogue from “Imhulf the Genius” (1398). I:4:14-19; II:2:32-53; II:3:1-12; II:4:11-18; III:1:1; III:2:17-22 by Immerstadt the Prolific (d 1405))

SEE ALSO: Baetyl Events, Vera Ilermalken, Yadd Island