The Dash Dash Dash series of short plays was prefigured by the making, over the years, of a number of playlets inhouse at Wimbledon College of Arts. These, I felt, were largely successful and it occurred to me that the whole production process, featuring new material, could be exported to a commercial venue.

I decided to write a series of six short plays designed for public consumption and secured a commission from Battersea Arts Centre wherein the plays would be presented in a studio theatre once a month over a period of six months between November 2009 and May 2010. In the seventh month the plays would be combined into a feature-length omnibus edition. Once again, all the plays were designed by Design for Performance students at the Theatre School in Wimbledon College of Arts, under the supervision of programme leader Michael Pavelka.

‘Dash Dash Dash’ as a title, despite the fact that each play was written in three days and rehearsed in two and a half, was not intended solely to signify performance work made in a hurry. It also refers to life lived in a hurry, or the hurry that life imposes or the busy-ness that characterises a world replete with labour saving devices or the sense of running from something unsatisfying to something that surely must be more satisfying. In Morse code ‘ – – – ‘ stands for the letter ‘O’ and is perhaps most well known for its inclusion in the emergency signal ‘. . . – – – . . .‘ : SOS.

The programme for the Dash Omnibus show contained the following statement:

The plays are not narratively linked                                                                                                                                                    They are not episodes in a serial.
While the plays may be satisfactorily viewed as singles they will also combine in a manner that will reveal hitherto unforeseen affinities.
Each play is written after its predecessor has been performed.
Each play is written in a few days.
Rehearsals are brief.

The claim above that the plays ‘will also combine in a manner that will reveal hitherto unforeseen affinities’, describes my intention to run the six stand-alone playlets together in one connected feature-length Omnibus performance, combining to produce a seamless (if not necessarily coherent) single play.

This etiolated aesthetic prevails throughout Dash Dash Dash, as shown in the sixth Dash playlet, ‘Gush’:

GINA I was talking with Roy. Or someone very like him.
DEAN What’s he up to?
GINA He said he had been experiencing the need to murder.
DEAN Did he mention anyone that he had in mind?
GINA No. He said that it was rarely personal.
DEAN Ah.
GINA He said that his anger was of a generalised nature and, in consequence, he felt no need to particularise.
DEAN Except, of course, at the last minute.
GINA At that point, I grant you, it does become rather personal.
DEAN Is Roy still even-handed?
GINA He says that it is of no consequence whether he murders a woman or a man.
DEAN Which is refreshing.
GINA It is. So often we hear of men concentrating on women.
DEAN He is a misanthropist – no more, no less.
GINA Less fucked up.
DEAN Oh yes.

In addition to the use of deafening high bpm music, the Dash series also featured the first uses of the crashbox. The crashbox consists of a tea-chest containing a quantity of broken plates. Two rope handles are fixed to the upper edges of the box so that it can be readily lifted. A stand microphone is arranged so that it projects down into the body of the box. When the box is raised eighteen inches then thrown to the floor, a loud and shocking bang will be heard through the sound system. The bangs were generally used as a means of cutting sharply and irresistibly across the onstage action in order to derail, destabilise but also enhance moments in which it was deemed appropriate to signal the imminence of chaos. Sometimes the bangs would simply interrupt without warning, at others they would punctuate dance sequences or passages of threat and physical struggle. We wanted to use theatrical maroons – electrically activated pyrotechnic devices – but it was feared that the windows in the performance space at Battersea Arts Centre would not withstand the blast.

Continuing an engagement with effects that could be said to be physiologically irresistible, many of the Dash plays featured simulated bloodshed. The impact of the bleeding walls in the inhouse WCA play ‘Red Devils’, described here, had been considerable and had, the designers and I felt, overcome the audience’s scepticism about theatre’s limitations with regard to the depiction of death and injury. Like swearing, it depends how you do it. In this post from 2010, the extent of Dash’s blood use is made clear.

In many of the playlets character names are changed in mid scene. Similarly, characters will be played by one actor in one scene then migrate to another actor in the next scene. Alongside plot lines that do not resolve or are impenetrable (‘In the Bosom of Roy’ is the main offender here) and the intermittent appearance of identical twins who do not resemble each other, there are also obtrusive geographical and temporal impossibilities. Little, then, can be relied upon. The characters, however, soldier on. Unless they are murdered.

Postscript: I wrote the playlet ‘In the Bosom of Roy’ in 2008 as an inhouse production at WCA, then used that title again in the ‘Dash Dash Dash’ series in 2010, taking some of the themes from the original but introducing a new ‘storyline’.

The characters:
Roy – Chris Newland
Dean – Gareth Brierley
Gina – Jude Barrington-Smuts
Nina – Abigail Davis

GINA I was talking with Roy. Or someone very like him.
DEAN What’s he up to?
GINA He said he had been experiencing the need to murder.
DEAN Did he mention anyone that he had in mind?
GINA No. He said that it was rarely personal.
DEAN Ah.
GINA He said that his anger was of a generalised nature and, in consequence, he felt no need to particularise.
DEAN Except, of course, at the last minute.
GINA At that point, I grant you, it does become rather personal.
DEAN Is Roy still even-handed?
GINA He says that it is of no consequence whether he murders a woman or a man.
DEAN Which is refreshing.
GINA It is. So often we hear of men concentrating on women.
DEAN He is a misanthropist – no more, no less.
GINA Less fucked up.
DEAN Oh yes.
GINA He said he might pop round.
(A KNOCK AT THE DOOR)
That may be him.
THE DOOR OPENS AND A FIGURE ENTERS.
AS HE DOES SO A LARGE AMOUNT OF BLOOD CASCADES ONTO HIM FROM A TANK ABOVE THE DOOR. THE TANK IS UNOBTRUSIVE. IT HAS A QUICK RELEASE MECHANISM OF SOME SORT WHICH IS ACTIVATED WHEN THE DOOR IS OPENED.
THE FIGURE IS VERY BLOODY INDEED. MUCH BLOODIER THAN ANY CHARACTER HAS BEEN IN DASH DASH DASH SO FAR.
GINA Roy. How nice to see you.
ROY You too.
GINA You remember Dean?
ROY Of course.
DEAN Good to see you again, Roy.
ROY And you. (TO GINA) Gina, can I freshen up?
GINA Be my guest. (SHE INDICATES AN UPSTAGE AREA)
ROY FEELS (NECESSARILY) HIS WAY TOWARDS A WHITE TILED AREA (SITUATED AS FAR UPSTAGE AS POSSIBLE).
HIS PATH IS BLOCKED BY A WHITE SOFA, WHICH HE FALLS AGAINST THEN CLIMBS OVER, LEAVING BLOODSTAINS ON THE UPHOLSTERY.
GINA Don’t worry. I do it all the time!
ARRIVING IN THE TILED AREA HE WIPES HIS FACE WITH A TOWEL.
LOUD, BANGING TECHNO IS PLAYED.
ROY DANCES WITH ABANDON, SPLATTERING THE TILES WITH BLOOD.
HE REJOINS THE OTHERS DOWNSTAGE.
DEAN Gina tells me you’ve a lot on your mind.
ROY It comes and goes.
GINA Is it controllable?
ROY That’s not really how I look at it. They are just desires.
DEAN Can you satisfy them?
ROY Absolutely. I evacuate them.
GINA Which reminds me: Nina is on one of her rare journeys.
ROY Do I know her?
GINA She is an interior decorator.
DEAN She took one of my outer areas and enclosed it.
ROY That’s not easy.
DEAN She should be here momently.
A VERY LONG PAUSE. THE LONGEST PAUSE IN THE DASH DASH DASH SERIES SO FAR.
A KNOCK AT THE DOOR.
PAUSE
GINA Who is it?
SFX OF A TERRIBLE, DEAFENING, GROANING ROAR.
BLACKOUT
ENTER NINA
GINA Nina?
NINA Gina?
SOUNDS OF NINA FINDING HER WAY ROUND THE SPACE.
A LOUD BANG AND A TINKLING OF GLASS.
LIGHTS UP.
NINA IS STANDING IN THE CENTRE OF THE ROOM.
GINA Nina!
NINA Gina!
DEAN (INDICATING ROY) This is Roy.
ROY I’m Roy.
NINA How are you?
GINA Roy is a man of some turbulence.
ROY I’m sure Nina doesn’t want to hear about that.
NINA Private is as private does.
DEAN Nina is an interior decorator.
ROY How’s it going?
NINA It’s tremendous.
ROY It must be very satisfying to have an interior.
NINA Are you not of fixed abode, Roy?
ROY I find them labour intensive.
GINA Which is where you come in, Nina.
ROY Where does she come in?
DEAN She comes in with her portfolio of skills, Roy.
GINA She is able to weigh up a person then outfit their personal spaces.
ROY Outfit?
DEAN Fit out. Bedeck.
GINA Adorn.
ROY What sort of space is that has no roof, no walls, just an accumulation of effects?
NINA Is that your place, Roy?
ROY Well, it is.
NINA What would you keep in it?
ROY A shallow tray. A small number of maps. Some liquids. An old photograph, not of anyone that I knew. A telephone book. A foot stool. A packet of clips. A hand mirror. Some stones. My socks. My coat. A hat that I would sometimes wear. A nail scissors. A tongue cleaner. One or two ointments. A brush for hair. A brush for clothes. A brush for teeth. A brush for floors. A brush for dishes. Some dishes. My cup. A torch. A ball of twine. A ticket. A pass. A small pot of earth. A mat bearing a crest. A frame containing a reproduction. A magazine rack containing copies of ‘This Car’ and ‘That Place’. The cans have no labels. The card of the packets is rubbed. The vodka is half full half empty. Pennies. Halfpennies. Some bags. A plaid and wheeled shopping cart. A volume of the Forsyte Saga. Newspapers that I have studied. ‘The Bugle.’ ‘The Herald.’ ‘The Clarion.’ ‘The Beacon.’ ‘The Brightness.’ ‘The Planet.’ Reference books with a great deal of facts and information. Certain weapons. Some wax.
NINA Roy.
NINA GOES TO ROY AND EMBRACES HIM. THEY KISS AND FONDLE EACH OTHER WITH INCREASING PASSION, OBLIVIOUS TO THE OTHERS.
NINA’S CLOTHES AND EXPOSED SKIN ARE STAINED WITH THE BLOOD THAT COVERS ROY.

GINA I’ll find some biscuits.
DEAN (LOOKING TOWARDS THE DRESSER) I see a tin from here.
GINA GOES TO THE DRESSER AND, ON TIPTOE, REACHES FOR THE BISCUIT TIN WHICH IS UP ON A HIGH SHELF. SHE INCHES IT TOWARDS HER AND EASES OFF THE LID, WHEREUPON ITS CONTENTS, A QUANTITY OF BRIGHT BLUE PAINT, SPILL ONTO HER HEAD AND SHOULDERS.
SHE PUTS THE EMPTY TIN ON THE DRESSER.
GINA I know they’re somewhere.
(SHE OPENS A DRAWER AND FINDS A PLATE BEARING SOME PLAIN DIGESTIVES.)
Ah!
(SHE TAKES THE PLATE OVER TO THE SOFA ON WHICH ROY AND NINA ARE STILL EMBRACING. SHE PLACES IT ON THE END OF THE SOFA.)
I’ll leave them here.
GINA WALKS UPSTAGE AND STEPS INTO THE TILED AREA WHERE A CLEAN WHITE TOWEL AWAITS HER. SHE MAY NEED TO WIPE HER FACE.
LOUD TECHNO MUSIC.
GINA DANCES FORCEFULLY, SPLATTERING THE TILES WITH BLUE PAINT.
THE MUSIC AND DANCING STOP.
DEAN Gina! I’ll make some cupcakes!
GINA Dean! You’re so fucking handy!
DEAN My mother was firm but practical. My father was weak and unable to satisfy her.
DEAN MAKES HIS WAY TO THE DRESSER
GINA Is that nature or nurture? I get so confused. Can you find everything?
ROY AND NINA STOP EMBRACING.
ROY IS NOW QUITE COLD AND INTIMIDATING.
DEAN IS SEARCHING FOR THE EQUIPMENT HE WILL NEED (A MIXING BOWL, SOME FLOUR ETC).
ROY (WITH QUIET MENACE) Are you saying, Dean, that there is more of your mother in you than there is of your father?
DEAN I don’t know how one might substantiate it, Roy, but that is my feeling.
DEAN FINDS A TIN ON A HIGH SHELF. BEFORE REMOVING IT HE OPENS THE LID. FLOUR CASCADES FROM THE TIN ALL OVER HIS HEAD AND SHOULDERS.
TO THE STRAINS OF MOURNFUL VIOLIN MUSIC DEAN, BEAUTIFULLY BACKLIT, SHAKES HIS HEAD AND BEATS THE FLOUR FROM HIS GARMENTS. IT RISES IN CLOUDS AROUND HIM.
ROY If I felt, Dean, that there was a woman in me, I would fuck myself. Do you see me fucking myself?
NINA Roy – Dean speaks figuratively, I suspect.
ROY Nina – I have searched your mouth hungrily with my tongue. I have felt you tremble under my heat. Out of a sense of decorum – not something to which I normally succumb – I have refrained from sliding my hand between your pale, taut thighs. I knew that you were out there, Nina, not in my fucking mind.
NINA Roy – I have opened myself to your questing appetites. I have bucked against your fuckmoves. I have felt the hot urgency of your rigid resolve. But a stoat cannot shag a zebra, Roy. If we were not already attuned to the presence of our opposites in ourselves then all our intimacies would be shit on a stick.
DEAN Nina, Roy – I have watched your eager coupling from across the room. I have heard the moans and fractured breaths and I have seen the hot feels as they were openly enacted. And I said to myself: what more evidence is required to substantiate the proposition that in every woman is the shadow of the male and in every man vice versa?
GINA Now, Dean – that is psychological!
DEAN Yes – it does pop out sometimes.
ROY Dean, Nina, Gina – with the greatest respect: fuck that shit! I have holidayed in the Falklands, I have shaved with my fingernails, I have camped out on cold coasts under polythene. Would this have been possible if I carried within me not even the shadow but the slightest trace of woman?
GINA Roy! I am sure none of us here wishes to impugn your scorched hardness. Your reputation for emotionless butchery is continental in its breadth.
ROY Let us say that I became aware that there is woman within me. (TURNING TO NINA) I believe that when I was inventorising earlier I mentioned my knife.
NINA Yes.
ROY I would take that knife and cut into myself and I would search myself with that blade until I came upon woman and I would cut it out and I would cast it down.
DEAN Fuck.
ROY And you would be wise to do similar, Dean. Looking into yourself there is something that throws into blur all that is sharp. What do you say?
DEAN I’m not sure.
NINA Roy, there is man in me and I am relaxed with that.
ROY So – I am homosexual.
NINA This is not my view.
ROY But I’m afraid it is, Nina. I have just lain with you hotly and with thrust movements. Yet there is man in you. Somewhere between the glistening arteries , tubules and cavities of what you call your interior is the acrid merciless metal of man. Have I been lying with that man, Nina?
NINA It is that man who understands the man that is you, Roy.
ROY I am not understood by men!
DEAN Roy, perhaps a cupcake would help.
ROY Fuck your cupcakes! I crush your cupcakes!
NINA PRODUCES A BASEBALL BAT (OF THE STYROFOAM ‘FUN’ VARIETY)
NINA I’m afraid I made a mistake, Roy. I was bewitched by your earlier itemisation. Now I see what you are.
SHE SWINGS THE BAT AND DELIVERS A BLOW TO THE BACK OF ROY’S HEAD.
ROY STAGGERS AND DRAWS A LARGE HUNTING KNIFE.
HE RUSHES AT GINA (NOT NINA) AND SEIZES HER, HOLDING THE KNIFE AGAINST HER THROAT.
DEAN Roy – it’s just a question of interpretation!
GINA SEIZES ROY’S NUTS AND SQUEEZES. HE ROARS WITH PAIN.
SHE ESCAPES HIS GRASP.

GINA Nice cupcakes, motherfucker!
ROY LASHES OUT IN THE DIRECTION OF DEAN, WHO RETREATS UPSTAGE AND TAKES A ROLLING PIN FROM THE DRESSER.
NINA TAKES ANOTHER SWING AT ROY AND CONNECTS AGAIN.
NINA It’s the man in me, dickbrain!
DEAN (BRANDISHING THE ROLLING PIN) Come on, Roy – you know you want some!
ROY DASHES UPSTAGE TO ATTACK DEAN.
DEAN KNOCKS THE KNIFE OUT OF ROY’S HAND WITH THE ROLLING PIN.
THE TWO MEN GRAPPLE IN THE TILED AREA.
GINA Go for his eyes, Dean!
NINA Gouge the fucker, Dean!
WITH GREAT EFFORT ROY MANAGES TO PUSH DEAN OFF.
AT THE POINT THAT THEY DISCONNECT, A TANK ABOVE THEM IN THE TILED AREA IS ACTIVATED, COVERING BOTH COMBATANTS IN BRIGHT YELLOW PAINT.
NINA & Yella yella smelly fella
GINA Up your arse like a rolled umbrella!
Fuckin mustard fuckin busterd
How’d you like to fuck dis custard?
NINA MOVES UPSTAGE AND BEATS ROY OVER AND OVER WITH THE BAT WHILST SCREAMING DEMENTEDLY.
DEAN PRODUCES A SLAPSTICK (’a device made of two flat pieces of wood fastened at one end so as to make a loud noise when used by an actor to strike a person’) AND BELABOURS ROY ALSO.
LOUD TECHNO MUSIC NOW ACCOMPANIES THE SCENE.
THE CRASHBOX (BACKSTAGE) IS USED LIBERALLY AT NON-RHYTHMIC INTERVALS.
NINA ROAMS THE STAGE WITH HER BAT, LASHING OUT RANDOMLY AND ROARING. IF ROY EVER RAISES HIS HEAD SHE BATTERS HIM DOWN.
GINA SIMPLY SCREAMS AND FLAILS HER ARMS.

ROY WRESTS THE SLAPSTICK FROM DEAN AND WHACKS HIM A COUPLE OF TIMES BUT IS ATTACKED IN TURN BY GINA WHO SEIZES THE SLAPSTICK AND SLAPS HIM ABOUT.
ROY BREAKS AWAY AND STARTS TO CRAWL TOWARDS THE DRESSER.
GINA PULLS DEAN TO HER. THEY EMBRACE PASSIONATELY THEN, AFTER A WHILE, SINK TO THE FLOOR WHERE THEY UNDULATE.
ROY GRASPS THE FRONT OF THE DRESSER AND PULLS HIMSELF TO HIS FEET.
HE SPOTS A WEAPONISABLE BOTTLE ON AN UPPER SHELF AND REACHES UP FOR IT.
NINA SEES WHAT HE’S UP TO AND MOVES ACROSS TO STOP HIM.
AS SHE GRABS HIM, ROY LUNGES FOR THE BOTTLE AND A TANK SITUATED IN THE SHELVING (PERHAPS DISGUISED AS COOKERY BOOKS OR SOMETHING) IS ACTIVATED, SPILLING GREAT AMOUNTS OF BLACK
PAINT OVER BOTH COMBATANTS.
GINA AND DEAN JUMP TO THEIR FEET.
THE TECHNO KNOB GOES UP TO ELEVEN.
ALL FOUR FIGURES MOVE UPSTAGE INTO THE TILED AREA, SHOUTING AND ROARING.
THE TILING IS LIBERALLY SPLATTERED WITH PAINT OF SEVERAL HUES.
THEY STAND ABREAST FACING DOWNSTAGE AND DANCE WITH GREAT AND GRIM INTENT WHILST EMITTING SHORT SAVAGE CRIES AT RANDOM INTERVALS.
THEY DANCE FOR A COUPLE OF MINUTES
THE MUSIC IS CUT. THE DANCING STOPS. SILENCE.
THERE FOLLOWS A PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT.
THIS CONSISTS OF THE SOILED FIGURES UNHURRIEDLY WALKING, CRAWLING OR LIMPING TO THE SOFA WHERE THEY SIT GAZING OUT IN THE DIRECTION OF THE AUDIENCE.
THEY WIPE THEIR FACES, EXAMINE THEMSELVES, ADJUST THEIR CLOTHING, SPIT PAINT OUT, PUSH CLOTTED HAIR FROM THEIR BROWS ETC.
THIS CAN TAKE A WHILE. NO HURRY.
THEN, AFTER A WHILE:
DEAN Roy, if you don’t mind me asking…
ROY Go ahead.
DEAN When you seek relief…
ROY I don’t.
NINA Everyone does.
ROY Nina, if it pleases you, speak for everyone, but do not think of me as a constituent of that group .
GINA Are you not as other men, Roy?
DEAN Or women.
NINA (WARNING HIM) Dean.
ROY I do not share your economy, your debits and your credits. Your notions of ‘relief’ I find degrading.
GINA You know, Roy: the ups and downs, the win some, lose some.
ROY It is not a useful system. It presumes a condition of perpetual loss that is construed as a failing of the implacable mechanics of being.
DEAN I don’t think we have much choice, Roy.
ROY This position, Dean, is entirely an effect of decisions made by your group. It is not in any way reflected in the fullness of the Real.
GINA So there, Dean.
ROY A man walked about the streets shouting ‘Fuck!” and ‘Cunt!’ Other men shunned him. He walked into supermarkets, cinemas and swimming pools, places where mothers and children lay with their dogs and goods. And he appalled them with his usage. He is called George. “Good morning, George. How is it for you?” And George looked at him and he said “Good morning, Tony. A packet of Senior Service if you’d be so kind. Cunt!”
NINA This is what George said.
ROY George says this a great deal.
DEAN Fuck.
GINA He can’t help it. It’s a condition. It may be related to a chronic imbalance in the secretion of the brain chemicals.
ROY This is where we part, Gina.
GINA It’s deliberate.
ROY Of course.
NINA It’s his brain, Roy.
ROY Of course it’s his brain.
DEAN Surely he does not wish to offend.
ROY George is a man of considerable delicacy. His skill is to see where things are not quite right and then he will make his position known.
GINA He is offering a service.
ROY This does not occur to him.
NINA I have seen these Georges, Roy. They shout ‘Cunt’ at random intervals.
ROY Nina. You have qualities that would be openly admired in the place that I come from. But your vision is narrow.
NINA I feel sure you’re going to enlighten me.
ROY On the one hand: your tics, your twitches. On the other: your composure, your discomposure and your recomposure. Your adjustment, your returning to the balance from the imbalance. Your use of the depot, the HQ, the hub, the place, the point. The point that is so very right there, so much at the heart, so much the seat upon which you were recently reclining.
GINA These are achievements, Roy. They are the ebb from the flow which will ebb which will flow.
ROY Again, your model is risible. Look at the man whose facial muscles jump, whose eyes blink in fusillade, whose shoulders shrug, whose face contorts in spasm. A thousand impulses annihilated in their moment of emergence. Your group pities this incontinence, regretting the fall from serenity. I, however, regret the stifling and the suffocation that so thoroughly extinguish each impetus that its role as guide and escort is barely glimpsed.
NINA Were we, then, to relinquish our guardianship of these electrical excursions, would we, in your view, be led precipitately to places far removed from the hubs and centres that you despise?
ROY Your tic, your twitch…
NINA I have none.
ROY As I have said: your serenity, your electrical vigilance, are symptomatic of the corrosive composure that characterises your group. In my group it is recognised that the flesh is the enemy of impulse. I maintain myself void. The impulse flows through me. I do not obstruct it thereby creating the tic.
DEAN Were I, then, to shout ‘Fuck’ as the impulse coursed though me, would I, in your view, be on the road to better living?
ROY You would be on the road. Each impulse propels you further. The roads branch at a tremendous rate. Soon the hub is a distant memory.
GINA Roy, do we become like beasts?
ROY Car radios no longer produce music. Brightly coloured objects stream into the driver’s lap.
GINA Do our thoughts take form?
ROY The thinker herself dissolves. We tumble though vast landscapes of concrete beauty. We never sleep. We move eternally. The world is far behind us.
DEAN Do our thoughts take form, Roy?
ROY Thoughts are peculiar to your group. You should see them as accidental transmissions emanating from the universe of concrete beauty. They pass though us. They have no value. As they pass through, flesh swarms around them. And then the tics begin.
SLOW FADE BEGINS.
ROY TAKES A GARROTTE (TWO WOODEN PEGS JOINED BY A 60 cm WIRE)
FROM WITHIN HIS JACKET.
HE RISES FROM THE SOFA AND STANDS BEHIND DEAN,
DEAN This isn’t spiritual, is it?
ROY No, Dean. Nothing is spiritual.
ROY LOOPS THE GARROTTE ROUND DEAN’S NECK AND STRANGLES HIM.
AS DEAN DIES HIS LEGS KICK WILDLY.
ROY STANDS BEHIND GINA.
GINA I like the idea of all those things.
ROY Things are not an idea, Gina.
ROY LOOPS THE GARROTTE ROUND GINA’S NECK AND STRANGLES HER.
AS GINA DIES HER BODY JERKS FITFULLY.
ROY STANDS BEHIND NINA.
NINA I don’t want to, Roy.
(ROY LOOPS THE GARROTTE ROUND NINA’S NECK)
I don’t want to.
NINA TRIES TO FREE HERSELF.
ROY TIGHTENS THE GARROTTE.
NINA STRUGGLES AND EMITS HOARSE, GRUNTING CRIES.
ROY Fuck you.
(HE PULLS THE WIRE TIGHT.
NINA JERKS AND TWITCHES AND DIES)
Fuck you.
ROY SITS QUIETLY ON THE SOFA UNTIL BLACKOUT.
END

The characters:
Bobbin
Timmy
Gretchen
Trina
SECTION 1: OPENING DIALOG
IN THE COURSE OF THE SHOW FOUR LONG SPEECHES ROTATE A NUMBER OF TIMES (DURATION TO BE DETERMINED IN REHEARSAL), PROBABLY ONE AFTER ANOTHER.
FROM TIME TO TIME DURING THE SPEECHES MUSIC IS PLAYED SO LOUDLY THAT IT DROWNS OUT THE ACTORS’ VOICES.
THE MUSIC IS DUTCH GABBER, ONE OF THE MORE DERANGED EDM FORMS, HAVING A HIGH BPM AND FEATURING AN EXHILARATINGLY ASSAULTIVE, MACHINE-LIKE BANGING AND HOARSE , GUTTURAL SHOUTING.
THE SOUND IS CUT FROM TIME TO TIME, HOWEVER, SO THAT PASSAGES FROM THE SPEECHES ARE PERFECTLY AUDIBLE.
AS THE SPEECHES ROTATE THE SOUND CUTS OUT AT DIFFERENT POINTS IN EACH SPEECH SO THAT EVENTUALLY ALL THAT IS WRITTEN IS HEARD.
WHEN THE MUSIC IS PLAYING ONE OR MORE ACTORS WILL DANCE TO IT (NOT THE ACTOR SPEAKING).
A TABLE ON THE SET BEARS A GLASS JUG CONTAINING WATER, FOUR GLASSES AND A PLATE WITH A NUMBER OF PLAIN DIGESTIVE BISCUITS ON IT.
ADDITIONAL SOUND FX: LIGHT BIRDSONG THROUGHOUT

BOBBIN Would anyone like a glass of water?
TRINA Yes Bobbin.
BOBBIN POURS WATER FROM A JUG INTO A GLASS AND PASSES IT TO TRINA
BOBBIN Would anyone else like one?
GRETCHEN Yes.
BOBBIN POURS WATER FROM A JUG INTO ANOTHER GLASS AND PASSES IT TO GRETCHEN.
BOBBIN POURS HIMSELF A GLASS AND MOVES AWAY FROM THE JUG ZONE
TIMMY I’ll have one.
(TIMMY POURS HIMSELF A GLASS AND MOVES AWAY FROM THE JUG ZONE.
ALL FOUR CHARACTERS SIP THEIR WATER UNHURRIEDLY AND REFLECTIVELY)
(TO BOBBIN) I’ve been thinking about what you said.
BOBBIN When?
TIMMY When you said that a man touched you in the street.
BOBBIN It was my friend Frank that was touched. We are often mistaken for each other.
TRINA Why?
BOBBIN I don’t know.
GRETCHEN (TO BOBBIN) What about Frank?
BOBBIN I don’t know.
TRINA (TO GRETCHEN) It was Timmy that raised it.
GRETCHEN Timmy. What was it?
TIMMY Bobbin’s friend Frank was touched in the street.
TRINA In a bad way?
TIMMY No. But touched.
GRETCHEN What was the situation in fact, Bobbin?
BOBBIN Frank is walking along and a man thinks that he is his brother.
TIMMY This is an example of the being mistaken.
BOBBIN No. I am often mistaken for Frank.
TRINA Why would that be?
BOBBIN I have no idea.
GRETCHEN What happened next? I’d like to know.
BOBBIN A man goes along to Frank and places his hand upon Frank’s arm.
TRINA But in a perfectly acceptable way.
BOBBIN Well. He did not know Frank.
TIMMY He thought, correct me if I’m wrong, Bobbin, that you were his brother.
BOBBIN Not me, Timmy. Frank.
TIMMY I’m understandably confused.
BOBBIN But not any longer, I trust.
GRETCHEN Anyway.
BOBBIN He’d gone to buy some tobacco and his brother was waiting for him and when he came out he took Frank’s arm and said “Okay, Roy.”
TRINA Roy.
BOBBIN His brother.
TIMMY I thought you said his brother was Billy.
BOBBIN No. Billy is another name. Roy is a well known name.
GRETCHEN I know it.
BOBBIN Well, there you are.
GRETCHEN In fact, I think I may know this particular Roy. What he did to Frank is characteristic.
TRINA What are his characteristics?
TIMMY It’s very hard to say that a person has characteristics.
GRETCHEN I think that says more about you than a person, Timmy.
TIMMY Aren’t people just what they are?
GRETCHEN Not especially.
PAUSE
TIMMY That’s very disappointing.
PAUSE

SECTION 2: GRETCHEN 1
THE PASSAGES RENDERED INAUDIBLE BY MUSIC ARE BRACKETED WITH AN ‘X’.
GRETCHEN My caravan was nearer to Norway than England. It was in the Shetlands. I tended animals and strode the strand with the wind in my hair. I was first approached in 1971 which is thirtynine years ago as the crow flies. A figure stepped out of the mist and bid me ‘Good day Missis.’ I thought little of it. I was reading a lot back then.
X The work of Woolf, Mansfield, Murdoch, Stein, some Blyton – ‘The Twins at St Clare’s’, some Marsh – “Death in a White Tie”, Grace Kelly’s book “I was once Grace Kelly before I married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956 then died in a car on a twisting road on a mountainside having had a stroke from which I never recovered X
and it was then said that I had been driving on the same stretch of highway that had been featured in my 1955 movie ‘To Catch a Thief’, but my son Prince Albert has always denied it. And at my funeral the actor James Stewart said ‘You know, I just love Grace Kelly.
X Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. God bless you, Princess Grace.’” It was so sad, so sad. She represented something. I don’t think she was like that. I was comfortable with that.’ X
If you concentrate hard enough , and I mean really hard, the mind can be brought to create any particular object desired. The Tibetans call this concretized visualization a Tulpa, meaning a magically produced illusion or creation.
X Imagine, though, being followed by Cliff Richard. Imagine if every time you thought of him you couldn’t help thinking about his backing group The Shadows. And then every time Cliff turned up, perhaps you’d be on the beach in a ruminative frame of mind and lo and behold there’s Cliff walking towards you but he’s got his fucking band along with him. Jesus.’ X
Anyway, I heard him again ‘Good day, Missis’ and this time by the long road that skirts the beach and runs up to the trees and then the hills and then the mountains and I was in the mountains and he said ‘Just come down. Just come down, Gretchen.’ I wondered how he knew my name. I was living incognito. In Lerwick. I was known as Angela. I was visited by my sister Betty to whom I bore an uncanny resemblance.
X I was visited by her on the beach where sometimes she would approach me through the spume across the shingle her arms outstretched and I would cry out thinking I saw myself and perhaps I had died she was my ghost and I had died in Lerwick closer to Norway where I had never been and never wanted to and people say, ‘My goodness, you were relatively close to Bergen and you never took the ferry and I’d say well it is cold enough and quiet and dark enough here why would I go to Bergen?’ X

SECTION 3: BOBBIN 1
BOBBIN Listening to you, Gretchen, I feel so very lifeless. I had wanted to be an adventurer like you but for some reason I was not able to get hold of the equipment. I set out on a number of occasions but each time I neared the coast I became disoriented and had to return. Something was stopping me purchasing a compass. But then I met a group of lively circus people in a gaily painted people carrier. The Ring Master was called Roy.
X One of the clowns, called Bonkers, who had a hilarious act involving mud and lemonade, befriended me and gave me a number of tips and hints. “Look Bobbin.” “Yes Bonkers.” “The secrets of strength and humour are are intricately linked. They both depend on knowing when to let go. Roy knows when you’ve let go too soon or if you’re not letting go.” So I walked up to Roy and said ‘Watch this’. X
I picked up two leaden weights with handles on them. Their only purpose was for to be picked up. As I raised them above my head I shat myself. It was the strain. It was not deliberate. I was not trying to make a strong impression.
X Roy stroked his moustache ruminatively. Then he spoke. “Look Bobbin. I don’t know whether that was instinctive or not but you’ve got flair. You’re at the cutting edge. You give people what they want.” “Thank you Roy.” “Could you do it to order? Every afternoon and evening? Living in a hand-carved caravan? Helping to feed llamas? A great sleet assails the circus ground at night. The jaguar escapes and mutilates the whiteface clown, that most august and enigmatic of the raucous group. The icy winds howl at the ankles of the high wire artiste. X
The diver Ronaldo, based upon the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo of the same name, dives from the tiniest of platforms at the tip top of the kingpole into a bucket of piss on a regular basis. Sille och Bille, the two Swedish clowns, one comes up behind the other quietly and shouts so loud that the other one wets his trousers. “So you can see Bobbin,” said Roy, “we’ve got a whole thing going here. You’d be family. Let me know what you think.” Soon I was in Hammersmith. My brother was coming round for supper to help me hang a mirror.
X As we eased it up the wall to the hook I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face and in that moment he turned away and I turned away and as he turned I started to turn so I never saw if he looked back because I had turned at the point where he had turned and he may not even have known that on seeing him turn I too turned he may never have seen that because he turned away from me. X

SECTION 4: TIMMY 1
TIMMY My cousin’s van is in a field and may be cold and may need a bump start. There are some ladies over there they look quite old but there are certainly enough of them to compensate for their frailty by sheer bulk of number. I asked them if they would not mind awfully helping me out. I explained that I would sit in the vehicle having engaged second gear but with the clutch firmly down to the floor while they placed their hands and shoulders to the back of the vehicle. As they pushed they started singing ‘Bumpety bumpety bumpety bump’ in a very charming way, not especially talented but with bags of spirit.
X It occurred to me that I was in the wrong business. I booked into a studio and got the ladies to come to cut some sides. In one afternoon we cut six songs and I put them on YouTube. There was no interest shown so I took the van back to my cousin’s house and left it in the road. X
We went down to Welwyn, the old town, not the Garden City which was a bold social experiment at the time but not to my taste nor to my cousin’s. We prefer a less planned feeling.
X My cousin was up for anything, a very enterprising man. On one occasion I remember, this would have been in a public place, a man said to him “Hey do you want to go into business with me immediately?’ My cousin had a hunch that this man was the flavour of the future. This turned out to be correct and in the future Rory, that’s my cousin, is now something of a big magnate with a lot of spending money. X
It hasn’t changed him, he’s still oddly flat in his manner and in his dealing with others he continues to avoid eye contact to such an extent that, paradoxically, it’s actually quite hard to remember his face.
X I mean I’ve known him for yonks but you realise that with most people it’s looking them in the face and them looking back that seals them in your memory. X
I can look at Rory’s face anytime I want, when he’s not aware of it, for instance, and I can study it but even then I can’t hold it all in my mind in the same time. I’m sure if Rory went away and was replaced by someone similar, like you get sometimes, you might not know. You’d know eventually because the other person wouldn’t be so flat, which is odd about Rory.

SECTION 5: DIALOG 1
PAUSE.
SOUND FX: LIGHT BIRDSONG
GRETCHEN Is Rory Roy?
TIMMY Rory is Rory, Gretchen.
GRETCHEN He does not stand for Roy?
TIMMY A person does not stand for a person. If that were the case then one would be uneasy.
TRINA I can see that. At the end of the day, if you come across a person who stands for a person there are a number of questions that must be asked.
BOBBIN I’ll interrupt, if I may, hopefully constructively, by venturing to pose one of these questions. If a person stands for a person, where is the person doing the standing? Where is he or indeed she? Are they in some way eclipsed by that for which they are standing?
TRINA Thus, in that sense, taking you up, aspiring to develop the enquiry, the person who stands for another person is themselves in need of someone to stand for them, given that they are taken up with the business of standing for someone.
GRETCHEN Which leads inexorably to the notion that, if there is, as you suggest, an infinite chain of instanding, then there is, by extension, somewhere, at least in theory, one who is only stood for and does not stand.

IN THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS THE LOUD MUSIC IS PLAYED OVER THE PASSAGES THAT WERE, IN THE FIRST SECTION, AUDIBLE. THE PASSAGES THAT WERE ORIGINALLY AUDIBLE CANNOT NOW BE HEARD.

SECTION 6: BOBBIN 2
BOBBIN X Listening to you, Gretchen, I feel so very lifeless. I had wanted to be an adventurer like you but for some reason I was not able to get hold of the equipment. I set out on a number of occasions but each time I neared the coast I became disoriented and had to return. Something was stopping me purchasing a compass. But then I met a group of lively circus people in a gaily painted people carrier. The Ring Master was called Roy. X
One of the clowns, called Bonkers, who had a hilarious act involving mud and lemonade, befriended me and gave me a number of tips and hints. “Look Bobbin.” “Yes Bonkers.” “The secrets of strength and humour are are intricately linked. They both depend on knowing when to let go. Roy knows when you’ve let go too soon or if you’re not letting go.” So I walked up to Roy and said ‘Watch this’.
X I picked up two leaden weights with handles on them. Their only purpose was for to be picked up. As I raised them above my head I shat myself. It was the strain. It was not deliberate. I was not trying to make a strong impression. X
Roy stroked his moustache ruminatively. Then he spoke. “Look Bobbin. I don’t know whether that was instinctive or not but you’ve got flair. You’re at the cutting edge. You give people what they want.” “ Thank you Roy.” “ Could you do it to order? Every afternoon and evening? Living in a hand-carved caravan? Helping to feed llamas? A great sleet assails the circus ground at night. The jaguar escapes and mutilates the whiteface clown, that most august and enigmatic of the raucous group. The icy winds howl at the ankles of the high wire artiste.
X The diver Ronaldo, based upon the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo of the same name, dives from the tiniest of platforms at the tip top of the kingpole into a bucket of piss on a regular basis. Sille och Bille, the two Swedish clowns, one comes up behind the other quietly and shouts so loud that the other one wets his trousers. So you can see Bobbin said Roy, we’ve got a whole thing going here. You’d be family. Let me know what you think. Soon I was in Hammersmith. My brother was coming round for supper to help me hang a mirror. X
As we eased it up the wall to the hook I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face I caught sight of his face as he caught sight of my face and in that moment he turned away and I turned away and as he turned I started to turn so I never saw if he looked back because I had turned at the point where he had turned and he may not even have known that on seeing him turn I too turned he may never have seen that because he turned away from me.

SECTION 7: TIMMY 2
TIMMY X My cousin’s van is in a field and may be cold and may need a bump start. There are some ladies over there they look quite old but there are certainly enough of them to compensate for their frailty by sheer bulk of number. I asked them if they would not mind awfully helping me out. I explained that I would sit in the vehicle having engaged second gear but with the clutch firmly down to the floor while they placed their hands and shoulders to the back of the vehicle. As they pushed they started singing ‘Bumpety bumpety bumpety bump’ in a very charming way, not especially talented but with bags of spirit. X
It occurred to me that I was in the wrong business. I booked into a studio and got the ladies to come to cut some sides. In one afternoon we cut six songs and I put them on YouTube. There was no interest shown so I took the van back to my cousin’s house and left it in the road.
X We went down to Welwyn, the old town, not the Garden City which was a bold social experiment at the time but not to my taste nor to my cousin’s. We prefer a less planned feeling. X
My cousin was up for anything, a very enterprising man. On one occasion I remember , this would have been in a public place, a man said to him “Hey do you want to go into business with me immediately?’ My cousin had a hunch that this man was the flavour of the future. This turned out to be correct and in the future Rory, that’s my cousin, is now something of a big magnate with a lot of spending money.
X It hasn’t changed him, he’s still oddly flat in his manner and in his dealing with others he continues to avoid eye contact to such an extent that, paradoxically, it’s actually quite hard to remember his face. X
I mean I’ve known him for yonks but you realise that with most people it’s looking them in the face and them looking back that seals them in your memory.
X I can look at Rory’s face anytime I want, when he’s not aware of it, for instance, and I can study it but even then I can’t hold it all in my mind in the same time. I’m sure if Rory went away and was replaced by someone similar, like you get sometimes, you might not know. You’d know eventually because the other person wouldn’t be so flat, which is odd about Rory. X

SECTION 8: GRETCHEN 2
GRETCHEN X My caravan was nearer to Norway than England. It was in the Shetlands. I tended animals and strode the strand with the wind in my hair. I was first approached in 1971 which is thirtynine years ago as the crow flies. A figure stepped out of the mist and bid me ‘Good day Missis.’I thought little of it. I was reading a lot back then. X
The work of Woolf, Mansfield, Murdoch, Stein, some Blyton – ‘The Twins at St Clare’s’, some Marsh – “Death in a White Tie”, Grace Kelly’s book “I was once Grace Kelly before I married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956 then died in a car on a twisting road on a mountainside having had a stroke from which I never recovered
X and it was then said that I had been driving on the same stretch of highway that had been featured in my 1955 movie ‘To Catch a Thief’, but my son Prince Albert has always denied it. And at my funeral the actor James Stewart said ‘You know, I just love Grace Kelly. X
Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. God bless you, Princess Grace.’” It was so sad, so sad. She represented something. I don’t think she was like that. I was comfortable with that.’
X If you concentrate hard enough , and I mean really hard, the mind can be brought to create any particular object desired. The Tibetans call this concretized visualization a Tulpa, meaning a magically produced illusion or creation. X
Imagine, though, being followed by Cliff Richard. Imagine if every time you thought of him you couldn’t help thinking about his backing group The Shadows. And then every time Cliff turned up, perhaps you’d be on the beach in a ruminative frame of mind and lo and behold there’s Cliff walking towards you but he’s got his fucking band along with him. Jesus.’
X Anyway, I heard him again ‘Good day, Missis’ and this time by the long road that skirts the beach and runs up to the trees and then the hills and then the mountains and I was in the mountains and he said ‘Just come down. Just come down, Gretchen.’ I wondered how he knew my name. I was living incognito. In Lerwick. I was known as Angela. I was visited by my sister Betty to whom I bore an uncanny resemblance. X
I was visited by her on the beach where sometimes she would approach me through the spume across the shingle her arms outstretched and I would cry out thinking I saw myself and perhaps I had died she was my ghost and I had died in Lerwick closer to Norway where I had never been and never wanted to and people say, ‘My goodness, you were relatively close to Bergen and you never took the ferry and I’d say well it is cold enough and quiet and dark enough here why would I go to Bergen?’

SECTION 9: DIALOG 2
TIMMY (INDICATING THE BISCUITS) Are those digestives?
BOBBIN They have been here throughout.
TIMMY Don’t mind if do.
(HE TAKES A BISCUIT AND STARTS TO EAT IT)
Just when you want a biscuit, there is a biscuit.
GRETCHEN Not always.
BOBBIN I seem to remember difficulties with them.
TRINA Perhaps that is a fear rather than a true memory.
TIMMY Shall we walk along the coast?
GRETCHEN Do we need our coats?
BOBBIN Not on this occasion.
TRINA Shall we walk to The Sloop?
TIMMY What is a sloop?
GRETCHEN It’s about the size of a cat. It has a bushy tail and and a yellow bib marking on its throat.
TRINA That’s a pine marten.
TIMMY Is it welcoming?
TRINA Oh yes. They love berries.
BOBBIN Let’s go there!
EXIT ALL EXCEPT TRINA, CHEERFULLY.
BIRDSON

NO MUSIC IS PLAYED OVER THE FOLLOWING SPEECH BY TRINA

SECTION 10: TRINA
TRINA To get where I am today, Gretchen and Bobbin and Timmy, I turned right at the road and over the hedge and into the field and under the bridge and along the track and down to the dark stream and up to the copse and across to the pools and over the leaves and through the bushes and into the hedges like houses and between all the reeds with edges like knives and up to the trees with black boughs bleeding and the yellowing weeds that were rotting like twigs under logs squeezing the sod like sponges the water came down my wrists and under my jacket with dozens of creatures and spiders and leeches and there were the men with their vans and their string walking the woods with hands in their coats clutching paper and wrappers and clippers and cutters and things for removing the whores and the harlots like Wendy and Charlotte who got away by the skin of their teeth from the creep who sat by the pool his dick in his hand beating the meat saying Girls why are you out in this place as the light drops through the sky and the crows settle down the rabbits retreat to their homes that don’t have windows or curtains or seats by the fire just earth and more earth and some roots and some shit by the door that’s where you belong Ruth and your friend my name isn’t Ruth so fuck off you jerk and we ran to the town down the lane to the house where we turned on the lights and looked through the drapes at the lamp in the street where a dog with three legs and a growth on his neck carried a pizza and pissed on the post while wolfing the slice including the bag then glanced at the house and his eyes both went red and the beams cut through the night and the fog and up on his legs he tore at his chest his coat fell apart like a coat on the road and out from his guts her hair all in flames stepped the girl with white lashes white brows in the palest of silks no dots in her eyes no marks on her skin she stepped off the kerb slid past the cars and knocked on my door I’m not in I’m not in she pushed and was through in the blink of an eye she said I’ve come to stay I don’t eat I don’t sleep I said there’s no room she said who needs room she moved fast I felt sick she pushed at my breast slipped in through my chest at which point I acquired all of her charms her light and her dark her brutal disdain and Gretchen and Timmy and Bobbin you’re thinking just what did she get that was worth such a palaver my spirit my soul well to be frank I never had either so there was nothing to lose it’s not like there are insults or upsets or outcries and such like no we’re working together she lives off my fear it gives her resolve it keeps her on tiptoe she just says Why not when you can and Go on what stops you there’s no system no one is watching is there someone above you someone who’s counting or checking fuck that there’s no one there’s nothing it’s all just a story come on over it’s better you do what you want you live where you can you eat what you find you fuck if you want to there are no higher powers or despicable drives it’s just what you are so fuck all the ups and the downs you don’t have to tread like a girl on some eggs that will shatter if you don’t gaze at your shoes like some worm on a log in a wood in the winter no let’s go now you and I not like a nation ether-eyed beneath the table but striding straight to places where the pirates piss the divers decompress the gliders come to roost the motherfuckers do their mothers and me and Angelina can just come and go talking to Michael and to Joe just like citizens well not exactly so more like shadows that you pass but on close inspection they are so hard you cannot put a finger through them and crikey are they there they so much are you wonder was it me that chose to turn away rather than there being little there to see so here I am and this is me she’s in me now she’s hot against my chest or is it desperately cold she makes me grow so fast sometimes I catch her in the glass as she turns away her hair is white her brow is high she can’t go far she needs my warmth she likes to feel my blood run by her as she settles down and down and if at any point I want her out all I have to do is tear myself apart
END

2010

The set designed for this playlet was exceptional. It was dominated by a high window through which shone a blue light. The window ledge was covered in snow. Beneath the window was a white desk with a top that sloped down towards the onstage area. As the play progressed, blood started to trickle out of the window ledge, staining the snow, dripping onto the desk then trickling onto the floor, where it pooled. The rectangular performance space was delineated by carefully edged lines of salt. On upstage right was a black booth, slightly less capacious than a phone box. When the actors left the space, scuffing the salt as they crossed it, they would retire to the booth, which contained a bowl of thick stage blood and a sponge. Each time they returned their faces and hands would be bloodier.
The same, short passage of terribly sad music was played on every occasion that the actors exited or entered.

The characters:
Trudy – Bernadette Russell
Betty – Jude Barrington
Hector – Gareth Brierley
Frank – Chris Newland

COSTUME NOTE: THE CHARACTERS DO NOT CHANGE COSTUME WHEN THEY CHANGE NAMES.

TRUDY Where’s Betty?
HECTOR Don’t know.
FRANK She was coming back by the top drive.
TRUDY Wet out there. Dark.
HECTOR It’s night.
ENTER BETTY
BETTY Hi.
HECTOR Top drive?
BETTY It’s quicker.
FRANK We thought it was slower.
BETTY Not at night.
TRUDY Did you do what you had to do?
BETTY I did.
HECTOR I have to go.
TRUDY Big one?
HECTOR No bigger than the last.
EXIT HECTOR
FRANK He’s a modest man.
BETTY He’s widely respected.
TRUDY He likes what he does.
FRANK Which helps.
TRUDY I like what I do.
BETTY People wouldn’t understand that.
FRANK Are there some biscuits?
TRUDY Probably.
BETTY People aren’t especially imaginative.
TRUDY No.
ENTER HECTOR
HECTOR Done and dusted.
FRANK Still raining.
HECTOR Snow.
FRANK God.
BETTY Already.
HECTOR Mad.
TRUDY Is it getting harder?
BETTY I wouldn’t say so.
HECTOR Possibly.
FRANK No.
HECTOR (TO FRANK) You seem convinced.
FRANK You have to be.
HECTOR Just conviction?
FRANK Seems to do the trick.
TRUDY It is a trick.
FRANK Who cares?
BETTY If it works…
FRANK I’m going to be late.
EXIT FRANK
HECTOR Is he fragile?
TRUDY Frank?
HECTOR Yes.
TRUDY He’s a bull.
BETTY Unstoppable. Really.
HECTOR Okay.
BETTY Likes his biscuits.
TRUDY People do.
HECTOR All people?
TRUDY Enough to sustain an industry.
HECTOR True.
ENTER FRANK
FRANK I wavered.
HECTOR GLANCES AT TRUDY
TRUDY But you did it.
FRANK I always do it.
BETTY What was it?
FRANK The snow.
HECTOR Footing.
FRANK Shoes could have been more appropriate, certainly.
HECTOR No fuss?
FRANK Standard issue.
BETTY I hardly think about it now.
FRANK I evaluate it, you know, I don’t blank it out.
TRUDY Anyway.
EXIT TRUDY
BETTY She’s another one.
FRANK What?
BETTY Just gets on with it.
HECTOR You don’t think she pushes it down?
FRANK Is that bad?
HECTOR What do you think?
BETTY If it gets it done…
FRANK Which is the requirement.
BETTY No need for any bric a brac.
FRANK There really isn’t.
HECTOR I do know what you’re saying.
FRANK This guy, in the street, puts his hand on my arm. He thinks I’m his brother.
HECTOR It’s happened to us all.
FRANK He’d gone to buy some tobacco and his brother was waiting for him and when he came out he took my arm and said “Okay, Billy.”
BETTY Billy.
FRANK His brother.
HECTOR How do you know?
FRANK We talked about it. He apologised.
HECTOR Was his brother near?
FRANK He was nearby. He heard the conversation.
BETTY Did he come over?
FRANK He was very good about it. Apparently he had moved from his earlier position. But he came back and validated his brother’s account.
HECTOR What was his brother’s name?
FRANK Alan.
BETTY No hurt feelings.
FRANK It worked out very well.
LONG PAUSE.
ENTER TRUDY.
SHE HAS A SMALL AMOUNT OF BLOOD ON HER CHEEK.
(TRUDY IS NOW LOUISE BUT WILL RETAIN HER FIRST NAME IN THIS
SCRIPT.)
HECTOR Oops.
TRUDY What?
HECTOR On your cheek.
TRUDY IS ABOUT TO WIPE IT OFF WITH HER HAND.
HECTOR I’ll do it.
HE WIPES THE BLOOD OFF.
TRUDY Thank you.
BETTY Chillsome?
TRUDY I should say! I’m Louise, by the way.
FRANK How do you do? Frank.
HECTOR Hector. You…erm…you know the situation?
TRUDY I’m afraid I’ve been in Peru.
BETTY Business or pleasure?
TRUDY My business is a great pleasure.
BETTY How pleasing. Betty.
TRUDY How do you do? There was a town I had to look at. When you go in you’re shocked because it doesn’t look at all like Latin America. It looks like Surrey. They all speak English. In the newsagent’s all the papers are British. It’s not a colony. It’s not an expatriate enclave. It’s not like Argentina where there there is a community of 20,000 Welsh speakers in Patagonia as a result of a wave of settlements that started in 1865. No. It’s like you park your car and walk down the road and you’re in Godalming. I mean, obviously, you’re not in it because you couldn’t be. You’re in Peru. I stayed the night in a pub called The Star Inn in Church Street. I had a terrific steak pie then a lovely pavlova. They do Hog’s Back Bitter, which is brewed in Tongham. It’s not too thick, which I hate. A decent double bed, with a bedside light. I was reading the paper, the Surrey Advertiser, and I realised what was strange. It was dated 11th December 1982. I popped down to the bar and asked the bloke if they had a copy of today’s one because the one in my room was somewhat out of date. He apologised and gave me one from a stand. It had the same date.
HECTOR But now you’re back in the future.
TRUDY Effectively.
BETTY But you came here from there.
TRUDY Well, yes.
BETTY How do you know that routes out of there lead to the present moment?
TRUDY The present moment is the present moment.
FRANK Not if this – Peru, I mean – was the real past. Because in the real past nothing beyond that past moment had happened and would not necessarily happen again in the way that it did the first time round.
TRUDY You’re saying you aren’t here?
HECTOR No, he’s not. He’s saying – correct me if I’m wrong – that we may be people in a present moment that you have never inhabited.
TRUDY But I don’t know you anyway.
HECTOR No. What I mean is that in visiting and then leaving Godalming-Peru you cannot be sure that you have returned to the time and place of your initial departure.
BETTY It is conceivable, in other words, that the person you are here and now is not the person that would have been here had she not chanced upon Godalming-Peru.
TRUDY I have lost what I might have been!
FRANK You have lost what you were before you left.
TRUDY But I lived a life becoming what I was!
BETTY It is possible that you will never know the life lived by the person that you are now.
FRANK You are, to all intents and purposes, a creature that has only lived in any real sense since departing from Peru.
HECTOR It may be the case that you should have stayed in Godalming. Many people do. Life there has much to be said for it. There are cinemas – the Borough Hall, near Bridge Street, is one such – and several shops.
TRUDY But I do not speak Spanish!
HECTOR It would only be necessary were you to leave.
FRANK I must go.
EXIT FRANK
BETTY Does he have two tonight?
HECTOR So it seems.
BETTY (TO TRUDY) I’ll find something tasty in a moment.
TRUDY On the other hand life doesn’t seem too bad here. If I can manage to cope with the emptiness.
HECTOR You might be able to find work, I suppose.
BETTY There may be a problem with references.
TRUDY I’m not sure how to proceed.
HECTOR You can crash here until you sort something out.
TRUDY Is English spoken in these parts?
BETTY Everywhere.
HECTOR For miles around.
BETTY We leave the locality often. It is consistently in use, Louise.
ENTER FRANK.
HE HAS SOME BLOOD ON HIS FACE (RATHER MORE THAN TRUDY HAD).
(FRANK IS NOW TOMMY BUT WILL RETAIN HIS FIRST NAME IN THIS SCRIPT.)
FRANK Good evening.
BETTY (HOLDING A CLOTH IN HER HAND) I’ll get that off. I’ve got a cloth somewhere. (SHE NOTICES THE CLOTH IN HER HAND) Ah.
SHE WIPES THE BLOOD OFF FRANK’S FACE WITH THE (DAMP) CLOTH.
FRANK You’re very kind. I’m Tommy.
HECTOR Tommy – this is Louise.
TRUDY Have you come far?
FRANK My car has broken down on the highway due to the thick swirling snow blanketing the locality. I am a concert pianist on his way to the Wigmore Hall in Wigmore where he is due to perform a number of pieces before an eager audience. He is scheduled to check in to The White Boar in Wigmore where he will relax with his wife who is currently in the car nursing a sprained ankle sustained as she helped him push the car out of a deep ditch into which they had swerved due to the thick snow falling and rendering all that is generally manageable unmanageable and then at about six-thirty proceed to the concert hall for a finger by finger warmup prior to the performance itself before a capacity house.
BETTY I’ll see to your wife without further ado.
EXIT BETTY
HECTOR You are some considerable way from Wigmore, I fear.
FRANK Oh dear.
HECTOR I would estimate, and this is an estimate, that it is about eight hundred miles from here.
FRANK A surprisingly large figure.
TRUDY It may be wiser to cancel, Tommy.
FRANK I hate to disappoint, Louise.
TRUDY Let us say that we attend to your wife, we straighten out your car and you go on your way. It is now just after four o’clock. Say that you go directly to the Wigmore Hall, having phoned the White Boar to tell them you will check in after the recital.
FRANK I’m starting to get the picture. Go on!
TRUDY You will have to travel at a mean speed of two hundred and fifty miles per hour in order to arrive by seven p.m.
FRANK My career is over.
HECTOR Think of yourself as an array of transferrable skills.
FRANK All I have ever done is play.
HECTOR Typing is very like piano playing. Some keys, some fingers.
A LOUD BANG (CRASHBOX)
ENTER BETTY
SHE IS COVERED IN BLOOD: FACE, HANDS, BLOUSE.
HECTOR Go all right, Betty?
BETTY How did you know my name?
HECTOR I always have.
BETTY You may be confusing me with another.
HECTOR We have another Betty.
FRANK I’m Tommy.
BETTY I have just fallen from a Cessna.
TRUDY What is that?
BETTY A light aircraft.
FRANK Are you a flyer?
BETTY Heavens, no.
HECTOR Would you like a glass of water?
BETTY No.
FRANK I expect you’d like to get your breath back.
BETTY (TO HECTOR) What is that you do?
HECTOR I am a contract worker.
BETTY Reliant on incoming.
HECTOR I am, in fact, needed presently.
EXIT HECTOR
TRUDY It’s a come and go world with Hector.
BETTY Are you familiar with him?
TRUDY Each of us is sheltering here thanks to his openness. We are strangers to each other.
BETTY How do you do?
FRANK Hi.
BETTY We’ve met.
FRANK When was that?
BETTY A short while ago.
FRANK I’m sure you’re right.
LONG PAUSE
A LOUD BANG (CRASHBOX)
ENTER HECTOR. HE IS BAREFOOT.
(HECTOR IS NOW ROY BUT WILL RETAIN HIS FIRST NAME IN THIS SCRIPT.)
HECTOR Hello. I’m Roy. It means King in French.
TRUDY Lee Roy.
BETTY Where are your shoes, Roy?
HECTOR They had good leather soles, which have style, but they were, as leather is, not durable. I had them resoled with durable rubber with a good contact adhesive.
FRANK Was this while you were out?
HECTOR No, Tommy. This was some time ago when the stylish leather began to appear scuffed and rough.
BETTY I’m Betty.
HECTOR It’s an unusual name.
TRUDY Was there an issue with the soles, Roy?
HECTOR Yes, Louise. While I was out, just now, in the snow, simply on a walk, having left my hotel, strolling at night, hatless, neither exultant nor especially low in spirits, content to see where I went, knowing that with my GPS device there was nowhere I might go that was not trackable, I started to slip and slide.
FRANK It was treacherous?
HECTOR That, Tommy, if you’ll forgive me, may be anthropomorphic. I do not subscribe to the notion that Nature has the least tendency to succour or sustain us.
FRANK I’m the same.
HECTOR I began to slip and slide. The soles had no traction. They did not grip. They skimmed, they skated, they aquaplaned. A leg would go one way. Its companion another. I had visions of being bisected at the groin. Even as I placed one foot before the other that foot would ski away and the other would slide back. Every muscle below my belt was taxed in a way that I had not experienced since my stint as wing 3Q for the Harlequins in the Guinness Premiership.
BETTY Were you handy?
HECTOR I was fucking handy. I tore mens’ ears and testicles off yet was never penalised. I made men into women on a regular basis.
BETTY Far out.
TRUDY I’d like to be a man. I think I was once.
FRANK In another life?
TRUDY We only have the one, Teddy.
BETTY Cocoa would be nice.
TRUDY TAKES A CHAIR DOWNSTAGE CENTRE AND SITS ON IT
TRUDY Somehow or other, and I don’t know why, or when, but I lost a lot of time. I say ‘lost’ – it could be round the corner, it could be just out of sight. Perhaps it’s right beside me. I don’t think so. It had a lot in it. It’s not like memory loss. It’s not Alzheimer’s. You could have that but it would be gradual. People would tell you. Think of all the stuff you do. It’s a big lot.
FRANK TAKES A CHAIR DOWNSTAGE CENTRE, BESIDE TRUDY, AND SITS ON IT
FRANK My life has been one of careful repetitition punctuated by brief reward. I would sit for days, month after month, year after year, practising do re mi fa lo sart / so me far lo day my start/ pay lee nah tee do/ fo sah no sa so fa da/ dum dum dee dee ta ta/ la na stah do for mi/ go for na da la/ go for nee no na/ dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum da
BETTY TAKES A CHAIR DOWNSTAGE CENTRE, BESIDE TRUDY AND FRANK, AND SITS ON IT
BETTY You’re up looking down, it’s all in place, you need GPS, you can get it in a wrist-watch now, it’s like another layer, but woe betide, bad luck coming, look out below fellers, if it drops off, it falls into a field, someone finds it, they know where they are, that’s a good thing obviously but you’re looking down and it’s all largely green, some houses, a river and so forth etcetera that kind of type of thing, but where’s what you know gone? You could go down there, go up to a house and say ‘Hello, I’m from around these parts’ and they’d say ‘As a matter of fact you’re not now go away’ and you’re up in the air looking down, they see you gazing through a thick dark cloud and you’re trying to send messages to people on land but they’re long gone dead.
HECTOR TAKES A CHAIR DOWNSTAGE CENTRE, BESIDE TRUDY AND FRANK AND BETTY, AND SITS ON IT.
LONG PAUSE
BETTY I can feel something coming. (THE OTHERS LOOK AT HER EXPECTANTLY) Yes. We should stay together.
TRUDY Using this house as a base.
FRANK Whose is it?
HECTOR Very good question.
BETTY It feels as if it is an abandoned place.
FRANK Abandoned but not lacking in charm.
HECTOR If this is to be the case then I will make a gesture.
HECTOR PRODUCES A HANDGUN (FROM A POCKET OR SHOULDER HOLSTER) AND PLACES IT ON A NEARBY SIDE TABLE.
TRUDY I second that.
TRUDY PRODUCES A HANDGUN (FROM A POCKET OR SHOULDER HOLSTER) AND PLACES IT ON A NEARBY SIDE TABLE.
FRANK Why not?
FRANK PRODUCES A HANDGUN (FROM A POCKET OR SHOULDER HOLSTER) AND PLACES IT ON A NEARBY SIDE TABLE.
BETTY Makes perfect sense.
BETTY PRODUCES A HANDGUN (FROM A POCKET OR SHOULDER HOLSTER) AND PLACES IT ON A NEARBY SIDE TABLE.
FRANK I hope this doesn’t sound indelicate but I think we should breed.
HECTOR I’m prepared to fuck Betty. Betty?
BETTY I certainly wouldn’t puke, Roy.
HECTOR You’ve got good tits.
TRUDY I would shag Teddy.
FRANK I’ve got a fat cock.
TRUDY I will make it feel at home.
BETTY Actually, I am happy to strap Tommy on as well.
FRANK Having first given birth to Roy’s child.
BETTY You can’t have two at a time by different persons, Teddy.
FRANK I wish that were not the case. It would speed things up so very much. (PAUSE) You know, since we are dwelling on the topic, I could easily slip one to Betty as well.
HECTOR And I, Louise, would be pleased to park the pork in your passageway of preference.
TRUDY I’d like to be a Cockney.
FRANK I’m Alec.
BETTY Hi, I’m Natasha. I suppose you could say I’m lively.
TRUDY You are, Tasha.
BETTY Thank you, Elsie. You are warm-hearted.
HECTOR Alec, you and I should get together.
FRANK Love to, Robert. I must say that since Tasha has been pregnant I’ve been staying at home rather too much.
HECTOR We’ll just go down the road so that you can dash back if Tasha goes into labour.
FRANK How will I know?
HECTOR A man knows, Alec.
TRUDY Oof! (REACTING AS IF HER UNBORN BABY WERE KICKING) Got a footballer in there! Not long now though!
BETTY I’m going to say just one thing, Elsie.
TRUDY What’s that, my duck?
BETTY Anchovies!
(BETTY HAS NAMED TRUDY’S ‘PREGNANCY CRAVING’ FOOD)
TRUDY Oh! You little pup! You’re so mean!
BETTY No. We’ll go and get some.
TRUDY What – in the tin?
BETTY We could go for a pizza.
FRANK (TO HECTOR) Tell you what, I’ve got to drop by the shop so I’ll see you down there. Ten minutes.
HECTOR A pint of Landlord, please.
FRANK See you there.
FRANK DOES NOT LEAVE
TRUDY I’ll get my coat.
TRUDY DOES NOTHING
PAUSE
BETTY (AS IF TRUDY HAD GOT HER COAT) Okay?
TRUDY Yep.
BETTY I need my money.
TRUDY I’ve got some.
BETTY No. Won’t be a minute.
BETTY DOES NOTHING
PAUSE
TRUDY (AS IF BETTY HAD GOT HER MONEY) Good. We off?
BETTY Off we go.
PAUSE
TRUDY AND BETTY DO NOTHING
HECTOR I’m off to see Alec at The Cricketer. You be all right?
BETTY Yeah.
HECTOR Sure?
BETTY I’ll be fine.
HECTOR Bye then.
BETTY Bye.
HECTOR DOES NOT LEAVE
PAUSE
TRUDY Yeah.
FRANK Did you?
HECTOR I wouldn’t say that.
BETTY No, thank you.
PAUSE
ALL (SPEAKING IN UNISON) I know.
ALL What’s that?
ALL We should eat later.
ALL I don’t want to.
ALL Why?
ALL I don’t know. I don’t feel like it.
ALL You always say that.
ALL No I don’t.
ALL You do. You always do. Just at the point when everyone wants to eat, you say you don’t.
ALL I didn’t realise I did that.
ALL Is it because you’re depressed?
ALL Not in the least. I’m very happy. All of the time.
ALL All of the time!?
ALL Much of the time.
ALL Ah!
PAUSE
TRUDY Well, will you? Yes, I probably will.
HECTOR I very likely will. You always say that.
FRANK Give him a chance. Why?
IN THE FOLLOWING SECTION THE CHARACTERS NOT ONLY SPEAK THEIR OWN LINES BUT THOSE OF OTHERS WHO WOULD OTHERWISE BE SPEAKING TO THEM.
BETTY COUGHS LOUDLY AND UNCOMFORTABLY
HECTOR It’s dust – I think I swallowed a tiny piece of dust.
PAUSE
FRANK COUGHS EXPERIMENTALLY
FRANK Yeah. Definitely. Happens a lot at the moment. Happened the other day. How?
TRUDY Don’t really know.
BETTY I just breathe in and it enters my throat. Well, that’s no different from anybody else, Tasha.
HECTOR I know everybody breathes in. What I’m saying is, Roy, I just get this thing at the moment.
FRANK Not all the time? No, just at the moment.
TRUDY Anyway, I’ve swallowed it now.
BETTY I’ll have a glass of water, though. Just in case.
IN THE FOLLOWING SECTION THE CHARACTERS SPEAK THEIR SEPARATE SPEECHES SIMULTANEOUSLY. THEY START AND FINISH AT THE SAME TIME.
PAUSE
BETTY This is very nice it’s not mucky it’s very pleasant I can feel myself in here something to do with the décor most probably I expect. You find a place like this you should cherish it you should tell your friends about it so that it does good business and doesn’t close down.
FRANK I’ve got a certain amount to do but when I’ve done it I certainly won’t get complacent there’s always more round the corner it would be good to see round the corner sometimes but I suppose that would spoil it half the fun is in not knowing that’s the fun of it.
HECTOR Now I’m just looking around taking it in and putting things behind me I’ll be buying some papers eventually that should help build up the picture it’s good to get a handle on things to commit with determination and pitch with the team it’s always best.
TRUDY There is the loneliness the wondering if you’re on the path or off the path at night sometimes at dawn there’s a low fog rising off the meadow but someone has taken the grass I expect they’ll bring it back by spring they usually do it’s something to rely on.
BLACKOUT
END

2010