Inconceivably, as you may not wish

I could use a few less hits. What a wonder, to only have to deal with one. But so it goes: tragedies run in threes.

This month, December as I’m typing: The passing of my beloved Aunt Charlene, and of my favorite teacher, Marian Loftin, and the horrific murder of a guy who created much of the greatest cinematic art of of the past 40 years.

Mrs. Loftin (As I slowly became adult, she urged me to call her Marian, but aren’t mentors always Mrs./Ms./Mr./Dr./Prof., no matter how old you grow?) rescued advanced students (me) from fainting due to terminal boredom, pulled the best out of those farthest behind and lifted all in spirit, wit and overall wanting-to-be-better-to-please-ness.

Two I thought of as surrogate moms. All three believed in cooperation, with the power to guide when needed, but the grace, strength and wisdom to step to one side, and let Fred take the lead. That’d be Uncle Fred, not Astaire, though that other skinny guy did all right, too.

In the wake of the horror, folks quoted from some films Rob Reiner directed: “This is Spinal Tap” to “When Harry Met Sally … ,” “The Princess Bride” to “A Few Good Men,” “The American President” to “Misery,” “Ghosts of Mississippi” to “The Sure Thing,” “Stand By Me” to “The American President.” What a range! And it’s good to relive those words, calling to mind the gentle, fair-minded, passionate, hilarious human being.

But as a writer and stickler, I’ve gotta note: He didn’t create many of those words. Due to their improvisational nature, the Spinal Tap movies probably have the most pure Reiner-isms, along with “When Harry Met Sally … ” a set where ad-libbing was also encouraged.

No, he knew the glory in harmony, working especially well with creative and on-screen partners in Tap, Chris Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer; and writers Stephen King (source material for “Misery” and “Stand By Me”); Aaron Sorkin (“The American President,” “A Few Good Men”), and William Goldman, who adapted King’s “Misery,” doctored “A Few Good Men,” and wrote both script and novel “The Princess Bride.”

It’s Goldman’s “As you wish,” his “‘Allo. My name ees Inigo Montoya. You keeled my father. Prepare to die.” His shrieking eels, cliffs of insanity, pit of despair, Dread Pirate Roberts, six-fingered man, rhyming giant; his “Inconceivable!,” “I am not left-handed,” and “Mawidge.” Speaking of collaboration: ad-libbing Billy Crystal (as Miracle Max) came up with “Have fun storming the castle!”

One of his deftest alterations was streamlining framing. The novel begins seemingly autobiographical: A Hollywood-famous writer named William Goldman struggles to connect with his 10-year-old son through a beloved book, “The Princess Bride,” written by justly-forgotten S. Morgenstern. Goldman recalls, when as a boy ill with pneumonia, his father read to him as a way of saying “Don’t die. There’s more to come.”

Current-day Goldman tracks down a rare English translation, and gifts it to his 10-year-old, who gets nothing. Barely reads it. Chagrined, the writer picks up the book, and realizes Morgenstern did a botch job, over-padding an adventure tale — chock full of peril, monsters, fencing, fighting, revenge and the dweam of wuv — into a flabby satire. His dad had been abridging all along. So, writer Goldman re-created “The Princess Bride” as it should have been, dubbing that “The Good Parts Version.”

One thing Goldman and I share: He NEVER let a running joke falter. Until his dying day, he maintained the illusion of S. Morgenstern. Gazelle, gazebo.

This is a first: Two weeks in a row quoting “Pericles, Prince of Tyre.” As the prince casts Thaisa onto a bier — floating casket — due to superstitions from not-so-loyal mates:

“A terrible childbed has thou had, my dear. No light, no fire; the unfriendly elements forgot thee utterly. Nor have I time to give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straight must cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze; where, for a monument upon thy bones, and e’er-remaining lamps, the belching whale and humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse, lying with simple shells.”

He laments not being able to perform rites of passage, imagines ambergris — a waxy substance formed in the intestines of sperm whales, expelled as vomit, whose musky scent is prized by perfumers as a fixative, and no I’m not making this up, and also may be released as feces, zo you get why it’s ingredient-listed as “ambergris,” and not cachalot poop, though who wouldn’t gently sniff an aroma by that name? — and assorted oceanic matter standing for crypts and monuments, the overhead stars for lit lanterns, the eternal wash and wane easing mortal remains apart, this wife who died giving birth on board a ship being pursued by an evil king from act one … seriously, this play is a delightful, mad mess.

Come goggle at it next time the Rude Mechanicals put it on, probably summer 2027. The last version I directed ran 75 minutes, as I trimmed the literal and figurative ambergris, losing bloated scenes, turning narration to action, and moving important words to a meta-narrator. In homage to Goldman, it was “Pericles: The Good Parts Version.”

“Pericles” ricochets from dangerous riddles and beheaded knights to starving kingdoms and tournaments at arms, plagued with intervening gods and goddesses, yet another wayward royal who’ll try to murder Pericles’ daughter Marina, only to be thwarted by a rash invasion of pirates (almost as unexpected as the Spanish inquisition), devastating storms, one magical return of a suit of armor …. And that’s with two acts full of kookiness left to go.

Not unlike our own, his saga hurtles forward with little preface, incident to incident, comedy to tragedy, despair to triumph, pausing only to regard life and destiny, to find, to lose, and to re-find; to consider the meanings of ultimate things.