If Shakespeare Wrote The Annual Report

We've just finished work on our annual report. For those among you who have never read one, an annual report is a summary of the preceding year, filled with facts and figures detailing how everything went for the business in question.

By nature, annual reports are usually rather dry reads, as people read them to get technically correct data about a company as opposed to seeking to be wowed with florid prose. However, while putting this year's edition together, a thought did come to mind:

What if, in-between plays and sonnets, Shakespeare decided to pick up some freelance work by writing an annual report for one of the insurance companies of his day -- yes, there were insurance providers doing business in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries-- and in the course of doing so becoming confused as to the assignment's nature and therefore wrote it as a play?

Let's see how this might have worked out…

SCENE: Morning in the town. Enter ACTUARIUS, UNDERWRITICUS, CLAIMSICUS and MARKETUS.

MARKETUS:

Gentlemen! I greet you with the excitement of the new day.
For lo, the sun doth rise brightly in the eastern sky;
Scattering its beams across hills and valleys
As they brush away the slumber from eyes across the land.
We must seize this grand opportunity provided by Nature itself
To travel across hill, dale and if need be Chip;
Proclaiming how our fine products and service
Bring comfort and renewal to all
Even as the fiery globe now above us warms and soothes.

UNDERWRITICUS:

Do not make haste to so travel.
We must proceed with caution most diligent,
For not all in this land are of fine nature.
Nay, some are of a scurrilous peculiarity,
Seeking compensation for losses not their own,
Or of a time so firmly rooted in the distant past
Whatever grievance they might have suffered
Has long since been erased by time's incessant march.

CLAIMSICUS:

Thou kiddeth not.

ACTUARIUS:

I too urge caution.
For whilst I am in the midst of my work,
We know not what compensation from the people
Is correct exchange for the protection we extend.

MARKETUS:

Upon my word, you three
Erect such barriers of reticence
You truly drain the light right out of the sky.

UNDERWRITICUS:

Better to drain the sky
Than draw from the reinsurance fund.

Enter ITICUS.

ITICUS:

Underwriticus, Claimicus and Actuarius, my good men!
Fret not over the plans of Marketus.
For I have provided him such tools and implements of exquisite nature
As to soothe any fears of overreach.
You have my most solemn word
That naught will spin out of control.

UNDERWRITICUS, CLAIMSICUS and ACTUARIUS:

Thy pun is most unforgivable.

Enter AGENTICUS.

AGENTICUS:

Gentlemen!
What have thee to offer me
With which I can entice the people who serveth the people
To entrust me with their trust?

MARKETUS:

We provide products most fair;
Protection for their domicile and carriage.

Enter COMMERCIALICUS.

COMMERCIALICUS:

And place of business
Or apartment or townhouse complex!

AGENTICUS:

What?

COMMERCIALICUS:

Uh… I'll explain in a few hundred years.

MARKETUS:

As was being said,
We offer service and comfort
Great of value yet small of price.
Should ever thy customers suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune,
Swift will be the hand of care we provide
To right that which has been made wrong.

AGENTICUS:

Verily thou hath inspired me!
Go forth I shall
To sell thy wares,
For you are most favored among all such businesses
And offer such goodness.

Enter AMBESTICUS and WARDICUS.

AMBESTICUS and WARDICUS:

We concur.

ALL:

Huzzah!